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 ISSUE 941 SEPTEMBER 2023

Ed i to r - i n - C h i e f
Julie Boatman

EDITOR-AT-LARGE Pia Bergqvist

TECHNICAL EDITOR Meg Godlewski
SENIOR BUSINESS EDITOR Fred George
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Amy Jo Sledge
COPY EDITOR Travis Tingle
PHOTO/PRODUCTION EDITOR Theresa Petruso

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Les Abend
Jason Blair
Scott Dennstaedt
Peter Garrison
Dick Karl
Martha Lunken
Jason McDowell
Sam Weigel
Ben Younger

PUBLISHER AND CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER Lisa deFrees / lisa@flying.media

DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS AND AD OPERATIONS Andy Welch / andy@flying.media
DIRECTOR OF MARKETPLACE Ian Hoyt / ian@flying.media
DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Kevin Cortes / kevin@flying.media
SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Roxanne Sweazey / roxanne@flying.media
DIGITAL COORDINATOR Aaron Will / aaron@flying.media
ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER Joshua Kelley / josh@flying.media

FLYING MEDIA
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Craig Fuller
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Preston Holland
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Fergus Caldicott
CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER Keith Beckman
PUBLISHER AND CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER Lisa deFrees
CONTROLLER Amanda Joyce
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, FMG Julie Boatman
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, FMG Amy Jo Sledge
MANAGING EDITOR, FLYING DIGITAL Kimberly Johnson
MANAGING EDITOR, PLANE & PILOT Amy Wilder
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Amy Deal
COPY EDITOR Travis Tingle
TECHNICAL EDITOR, FLYING Meg Godlewski
SENIOR TRAVEL WRITER, FLYING Jonathan Welsh
SENIOR REPORTER, UAS Jack Daleo
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Grace Carlon
OPERATIONS MANAGER Reis Costa

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For content reuse and permissions, please email reprint@flying.media.

Copyright 2023, FLYING Media Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part of any text, photograph, or illustration without written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. Email:
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1
 ISSUE 941 SEPTEMBER 2023
TABLE OF CONTENTS

s torie s 80
Predictable Unpredictability /
David Hampson

34 64 82
What’s New in Aircraft / Piston Performers / Test-Flying Sporty’s PJ2+ Com
FLYING Staff Julie Boatman / Meg Godlewski

48 72 84
Jets: Reaching the Service Affordable Aviation Favorites / Trust But Verify /
Ceiling / Fred George Dan Johnson Richard Scarbrough

56 78 88
Turboprops: Power Up / Financing: What Are Your Options? / The Intricacies of Getting
Julie Boatman FLYING Staff Ready for Reno / Jonathan Welsh
 PREFLIGHT LIFE IN THE AIR ON THE COVER

4 Next Great Flight 94 Taking Wing / Sam Weigel The HondaJet Elite II shows off
8 View From Above 98 Leading Edge / Ben Younger its increase in range and useful
load, among other upgrades
10 Taking Off in Public 102 Gear Up / Dick Karl
to come.
12 Inbox 106 Jumpseat / Les Abend
14 Chart Wise 108 Unusual Attitudes / Martha Lunken
16 I.L.A.F.F.T. 110 Technicalities / Peter Garrison
20 Aftermath 112 Sign Off
24 In Depth

FLYING (0015-4806) (USPS 504-930), September 2023, Issue 941. FLYING is published monthly by FLYING Media Group, 605 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 800,
Chattanooga, TN, 37450. Periodicals postage paid at Chattanooga, TN, and additional mailing offices. Authorized periodicals postage by the Post Office Depart-
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mag.com/cs; 303-943-1226 or 800-678-0797. If the postal service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive
a corrected address within one year.
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Solutions, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2
 PREFLIGHT
N EXT GR E AT FL IGH T
BEHIND
THE LENS
Meg Godlewski

THERE ARE SOME aircraft you can read

about and see pictures of, but their sheer size
still doesn’t hit you until you are up close and
personal with them. The Aero Spacelines Super
Guppy—the behemoth aircraft designed in the
1960s specifically to carry oversized loads, like
the body sections of the Saturn V rocket—is one
of those aircraft.

During EAA AirVenture 2023 people marveled

at the utter magnitude of the Super Guppy’s
cargo compartment—a full 25 feet wide and 111
feet long—that is accessed as the entire front
end of the aircraft opens laterally on a hinge
actuated by an external electric motor. A con-
trol lock and disconnect system at the fuselage
break allows the nose to be opened a full 110 de-
grees without disrupting the flight or engine
control rigging.

The cockpit of the Super Guppy is derived

Stephen Yeates Photography

from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and KC-

97 Stratotanker. The flight deck is spacious
compared to modern airliners, and the con-
trol yoke and rudder pedals are large by to-
day’s standards—a good indication that this
airplane takes a lot of muscle and patience to
maneuver through the sky.
DIFFERENT BY DESIGN.
DISRUPTIVE BY CHOICE.
 OCEAN REEF AIRPORT 4,451 FEET
Key Largo - FL Short Runway

Fly further thanks to full fly-by-wire.

N O W T H E O N LY Q U E S T I O N I S ,
W H E R E D O YO U WA N T T O G O N E X T ?

+1 321 751 5050 | embraer.com/praetor600


VIEW FRO M A BOVE
THE FLYING BUYERS Guide
brings together a massive effort
from the team to compile the best
of the new aircraft on the horizon,
with actionable data you can use to
make purchase decisions—or just
dream a little bit.
You want to buy an airplane?
You’ve figured out the ones you
fancy most, whether through pe-
rusing the pages of Aircraft For Sale
or serious conversations with the
folks standing beside your next love
at EAA AirVenture. You have your
financing—or cash—together. You
have the necessary signoff from the
home front.
In the post-pandemic world, eco-
nomic and political factors com-
pete to pull the most on the global
aviation industry. So depending on
whether you are buying new or pre-
owned (or someone else’s handiwork
in the experimental segment), your
approach in 2023 differs a bit.
For pre-owned buyers, we have
good news: The market for used
aircraft has descended from the
} JULIE BOATMAN is a flight instructor with an airline transport pilot certificate and type ratings in the Cessna Citation
Mustang and the Douglas DC-3—but she finds true happiness flying low and slow. Follow her on Twitter: @julieinthesky.
LE T TER FROM THE EDITOR
D R E AM MAC H I N ES
Find yours in the pages of FLYING—or at Reno.
stratosphere. Buoyed from 2020 to
2022 by surging demand, inflation,
and constraints on the normal pro-
cess (like prebuy inspections, which
went out the window for a brief, mad
period), prices have returned to
more reasonable figures, and there
are still numerous options to choose
from among most popular models.
If you’re looking for a new air-
plane, you may find that manufac-
turers *really* want to get you in the
lineup, but most still struggle with
ongoing supply chain issues. When
combined with steady demand for
new aircraft, you may find your po-
sition pushing out to next year…or
even into 2025, depending on the
airplane.
I have one friend who gives some
perspective on the situation. She has
a 2023 Cessna T206 HD Stationair
on order, and she was originally
scheduled to take delivery in May.
The chip shortage that has plagued
companies across the board meant
her delivery date moved into Sep-
tember at least. Because she works
as an engineer in an adjacent in-
dustry, she knows well the issue at
hand—and wants an airplane that is
not compromised. So she can toler-
ate a few months’ wait.
But fleet customers may not have
as much flexibility, if a business plan
depends on the timely delivery of an
airplane.
Every OEM rep I spoke with at
AirVenture addressed the concerns.
8
“There is no one item. The entire
industry is facing these delays in
parts,” said Chris Crow, vice presi-
dent of piston sales for Textron Avi-
ation. “There’s no one thing. I will
say it’s improving, and we’re doing
a lot of work with our vendors to
try and help through some of these
shortages, offer support—we’re do-
ing everything we can to get aircraft
into customers’ hands as fast as we
can, as safely as we can.”
You can think of FLYING in the
same way. With this issue we bring
you tools to help you navigate fi-
nancing, insurance, and the prebuy
inspection—plus we show you a new
handheld com to take in your new
(or new-to-you) dream machine.
A nd speaking of dream ma-
chines? We couldn’t let the Sep-
tember 2023 issue go out the door
without a tribute to what may be the
last running of the National Cham-
pionship Air Races at Reno. Jona-
than Welsh takes you behind the
scenes in what it’s like to campaign a
“Reno Racer.” And I talk “In Depth”
with Vicky Benzing, who has scored
high in the Sport and Jet classes and
is making a bid for Unlimited with
this penultimate race. Stay tuned for
the next chapter from the “Septem-
ber family.”
Julie Boatman
oatman
Editor-in-Chief
n-Chief
 150,000
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lowest prices. AircraftSpruce.com | 877 4-SPRUCE

SEPTEMBER IS ONE of my fa-
vorite months. It’s the kickoff of the
college football season and cool-
ing temperatures, and kids (I have
five!) are back in school. In just two
months, the leaves will change, and
some of the best flying of the year
will descend upon us.
It is also an important season for
folks that work in the aviation in-
dustry. Why is that?
Many airplanes are bought and
sold before the end of the year, with
prospective buyers motivated by
accelerated depreciation and other
incentives that happen because of
the calendar. If you are consider-
ing selling an airplane, now is the
time to do so.
We’ve been focusing on growth
at FLYING Media Group, including
bringing new media publications
into the portfolio and expanding
our breadth of coverage. Our goal
is to go deeper into the various as-
pects of aviation, leading with a con-
tent-first strategy in everything that
we do.
Courtesy of Craig Fuller
By the end of the year, the FLY-
ING Media Group team will include
more than 100 full-time employees
and contributors, all focused on the
mission of providing in-depth cover-
age of the aviation industry.
} CRAIG FULLER is CEO of FLYING Media Group and an active pilot of his ICON A5 and Tecnam Astore.
L E T T E R F R O M T H E C EO
TAK I NG OF F
IN PUB LI C
MY FAVORITE MONTH
Aircraft sales and beautiful fall flying make September a great time for pilots.
BY CRAIG FULLER
Across our FLYING Media port-
folio, which now includes FLYING,
Plane & Pilot, AVweb.com, KIT-
PLANES, Aviation Consumer, Avi-
ation Safety, IFR, ByDanJohnson.
com, BusinessAIR, and Aircraft For
Sale, we receive more than 3 mil-
lion visitors per month—three times
more traffic than AOPA.org, accord-
ing to SimilarWeb, a company that
tracks web traffic.
In each of the acquisition transac-
tions we have completed, we’ve fo-
cused on expanding the content and
coverage of aviation. With the excit-
ing growth, technology innovations,
and regulatory changes, there has
never been a better time to build a
media business focused on aviation.
FLYING Media Group also has
been building our aircraft listings
business, Aircraft For Sale, which
offers classified ads for aircraft on-
line and in print. After all, the used
aircraft market dwarfs the new
market by multiples. Our market-
place is experiencing significant
growth, and we’ve been developing
some really exciting features to en-
hance the shopping and selling ex-
perience across it.
And, the print edition of Aircraft
For Sale goes out to every FLYING
subscriber and thousands of FBOs.
This strategy assures that anyone
who lists an aircraft in Aircraft For
Sale puts it in front of virtually all
prospective buyers.
As we have been building Aircraft
For Sale, we noticed the number of
banks currently offering aircraft fi-
nancing is limited—and even those
that offer that type of financing
limit the kinds of aircraft they will
10
write loans on. After speaking with
a number of financial institutions,
we recognized the limitations are
because of their lack of understand-
ing of the aircraft market—a need
for domain expertise.
We feel that FLYING Media
Group is uniquely positioned to
solve the information gap and help
financial institutions get comfort-
able with the aircraft market and
build their familiarity with the vast
array of aircraft models. After all,
FLYING has the deepest content
archive of all general aviation me-
dia brands on the planet.
To execute this strategy, FMG
recently acquired Sky Allies, an
aircraft finance business that we
plan to rebrand as FLYING Finan-
cial Group. Our goal is to create a
streamlined process to help buyers
find competitive financing and as-
sist financial institutions to be more
comfortable and market-savvy in
aircraft lending. All of this will help
us create a better experience for the
buyers and sellers of aircraft across
the market. You can learn more
about financing in our feature in-
terviewing Josh Colton, founder of
Sky Allies, in this issue.
Most importantly, profits that
we make in any part of our business
will be reinvested back into our con-
tent business, including FLYING, all
with the goal of providing deeper
coverage of the aviation industry.
I look forward to enjoying Sep-
tember (and fall in general), and
hope you do as well!
Comments or ideas? You can reach
me @freightalley on Twitter (“X”).

First Flight
I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan
Welsh’s “Destinations” article,
“First Flight Airport & The Wright
Memorial” in FLYING’s Issue 940.
On the introductory page, Mr.
Welsh posed the idea, “I also won-
der how the brothers [Orville and
Wilbur Wright] would feel about
our current state of aviation.”
My take: If they were to come
back in 2023, when Orville and
Wilbur Wright were revived after
passing out at the wonders of
modern aerospace, they would
note many miraculous changes
that have taken place in the past
120 years. The Wright Flyer’s first
flight covered 180 feet and lasted
only 12 seconds. Today, we have
commercial airliners that can
span oceans in hours, military air-
craft that can fly around the world
nonstop with aerial refueling,
[and] aircraft that can fly several
times the speed of sound. People
have been to the moon and back
several times with plans for even
bolder missions soon. We devel-
oped a space shuttle program to
increase the benefits of space
travel. People are living in a space
station over 200 miles above the
Earth’s surface for months at a
time. Spacecraft have reached
the farthest points in our solar
system and beyond. We have ro-
bot rovers and probes exploring
Mars. We have telescopes orbit-
ing our planet to see into the far
reaches of the universe. Rockets
Beyond the Uniform
Regarding Sam Weigel’s column in Issue 939: Like the author, I’ve
flown with both military and civilian pilots. My dearest friends are non-
military pilots at the Lake Elsinore Soaring Club [in California]. The on-
ly difference I can attest to is that we who served signed, as General
[James] Mattis likes to say, “the blank check.”
LET TERS FROM OUR READERS
I N BOX
regularly carry probes and sup-
plies into space, and plans are in
the works to have humans living
on the moon and Mars in the not-
too-distant future. Plus, we have
worldwide rapid communications
capabilities and weather/envi-
ronmental monitoring, thanks to
the orbiting spacecraft, which are
in reality advanced forms of the
1903 Wright Flyer.
We have come a long way in
the last 120 years since the be-
ginnings at Kitty Hawk. What the
next 120 years will bring to our
aerospace efforts is limited only
by our imagination and will to ex-
plore our surroundings.
Tim Brown
via email
The Elephant
in the Room
In regard to “Calling Out the
Elephant” by Lisa deFrees: Wow! I
am sorry you had to say all of that
to the readers. First, I love the
magazine and all the coverage.
And I love that there have been so
many additions to the magazine
family. I never questioned “The
Fields,” and in all actuality I liked
seeing the property. Very neat to
see that kind of lifestyle. Like a
dream world—and I sure like to
dream! Thank you for all you do.
Rich Chatmas
via email
Tom Phillips
via email
12
Misstep
I think Peter Garrison did a good
job on the above-noted article
[Issue 940]. However, I would
ask him to consider a couple of
possibilities: What if, instead of the
pilot stepping on the wrong rudder
pedal, the aircraft’s rudder boost
system was hooked up backward?
This very thing happened to me
on a post-maintenance King Air
test flight, and during my next
recurrent training at FlightSafety
International, the instructor said
several other pilots had reported
this. Except for the sound spectrum
study of propeller rpm, there is
little evidence of a left engine
power reduction. What if the right
engine had suffered a fuel control
runaway? Same yaw as a left
engine rollback but more severe.
The throttle migration theory
stems from a British accident
where the power reduction was
attributed to this. I have never
met a King Air pilot who [agrees
with] this scenario. None of
the King Air series could meet
the Part 23 VMC requirement
with four-blade propellers. This
led to the requirement for a
working autofeather system for
airworthiness. However, there are
instances where autofeather will
not work as designed. A slow engine
rollback is one. In this configuration,
a pilot can be well above the
published VMC airspeed but well
below the aircraft’s actual VMC. Mr.
Garrison was wise in questioning
the NTSB’s “probable cause.”
Marc Fruchter
via email
LET US KN OW WH AT YOU T H IN K
S END L ETT ERS TO:
E DI TO RI AL@FLYIN GMAG.COM
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A NO STRAIGHT-INS
A VOR-A approach like
this indicates that the
final approach course
does not directly line
up with a particular
runway. It is designed
to approach the airport
and, once the runway
environment is in sight,
the pilot will circle to the
runway of their choice.
Expect some limitations.
Circling to Runway 17 is
not authorized at night.
Circling east of Runways
21 and 35 is also not
authorized for categories
C and D aircraft,
presumably because of
proximity to the terrain
to the east and the wider
circling path needed
for faster aircraft.
Remember, a descent
below your applicable
circling minimum isn’t
allowed until you are
in a position to make a
normal landing on an
approach such as this.
} JASON BLAIR is a flight instructor, FAA examiner, and author in the general aviation and training communities.
PREFLIGHT
CH ART W IS E
O G D EN , U TAH
VO R-A
A circling approach to a mountain getaway
BY JASON BLAIR
BILLED AS UTAH’S up-and-coming mountain desti-
nation perhaps for some skiing in the winter, hiking or
mountain biking in warmer seasons, or some of the newer
dining options in town, Ogden could be on your fly-to air-
port list. If it is, the VOR-A might be the approach you use
to transition from the en route environment down to the
airport, which means you will end up circling to one of
the available runways.
e CLIMB AND
TURN AND
B USE THE ARC inbound, they can de- KEEP CLIMBING
With terrain to the scend when established Going missed on this
east and west, pilots at 5,700 feet msl until approach has a pilot
might take advantage they cross the VOR. Af- turn left to the OGD
of using the arc from ter crossing the VOR, a VORTAC and then fol-
the en route environ- descent to the appropri- lowing the 263-degree
ment (both of these ate circling minimum is radial to the MOINT
waypoints are on low allowed. With no glide intersection, which
altitude en route air- slope, the pilot must is 15.1 DME from the
ways) to establish onto keep track of when and OGD VOR. The in-
a segment of the ap- where they descend structions then note
proach. Both RACGO along the segments of to “continue climb-
and JEMKU waypoints this approach. in-hold to 13,000.”
are initial approach This is a good hint
fixes (IAFs) depicted D SHORT DISTANCE: that unless you have
from which the pilot FAF TO THE MAP some pretty spectacu-
could use a DME arc to It is a mere 3.5 DME lar climb performance
then turn inbound on from the FAF at the from the circle-to-land
the 101-degree path to OGD VOR to the missed minimums, if you go
the VOR. approach point, and missed, you are going
this distance can go by to have somewhere
C WORK THE DESCENTS quickly. Timing is an op- around 8,000 vertical
A pilot might establish tion for determining the feet of climbing to do
onto a DME arc and de- missed approach point before you are fully es-
scend from the en route but so is DME. When you tablished in the hold.
environment at a higher reach the FAF, be ready Expect to enter the
altitude to a minimum to quickly find the airport hold and be climbing
of 7,200 feet msl along or make a decision to go until you reach 13,000
the arc. Once they turn missed if necessary. feet msl.
14
 e

c
b

15
D
A

Reproduced with pe rmission of J eppese n. NOT FOR NAVI G AT I ON AL US E . © J e pp e sen, 2020.

 PREFLIGHT
I.L . A . F. F.T.

W EI G H T, WEI G HT,
D ON ’ T T E LL M E
A long-ago flight out of Dallas almost ended in a total loss.

BY R AY M O N D H E D RIC K

SHORTLY AFTER GETTING my private pilot certif-
icate in 1966, I began my real learning in the form of a
near-catastrophic mistake.
Looking back now, it dawns on me that most of what
I know today did not come from the normal, required
syllabus training but from life experiences, along with
an occasional hair-raising event, one of which I can fi-
nally share.
Like many pilots, most of my private pilot training took
place in a two-place Cessna. My CFI actually weighed a
maybe 120 pounds. My first solo, however, gave me a star-
tling surprise, though, when the Cessna 150 trainer shot
up so rapidly...I had just shedded 350 pounds and strug-
gled to acquire the new, lighter “feel.”
Transitioning from a lighter to a heavier single is a pro-
cess we learn largely on our own without much training.
Check rides are a helpful measure of safety and highly
recommended. The larger the aircraft, the heavier the
controls, and while often more stable, it is always differ-
ent. Moving up to more advanced aircraft enhances our
Joel Kimmel

morbidly obese 350 pounds and was in his upper 60s. joy of flying. Plus, the heavier the airplane, the more so-
Were we always overloaded upon takeoff? No, because phisticated it often is. Constant-speed prop, retractable
being a hard-working, skinny, 25-year-old, I carried gear, etc. Even more challenging are those “category/

16
 BEFORE YOU MAKE AN
OFFER, MAKE A CALL.
Avemco Insurance Company is a member of the Tokio Marine HCC group of companies. ADS0207 (04/23)

Don’t buy anything until you talk to us. We’ll tell

you if you qualify to insure it and what it will cost.
Call us (800) 276 5206 Avemco.com
 PREFLIGHT
I. L . A .F.F.T.
We started our takeoff roll.
And we rolled...we kept rolling.
class” transitions (seaplane, twin-engine, etc.) that take
us to the next level.
By the time I had accrued some 140 total flight hours,
a friend mentioned that his wife and her sister were re-
turning home from a trip back east. It was late June. To
save them the expense of a night’s lodging in Dallas, I
agreed to fly to Love Field (KDAL) and fly them back
to the now long-abandoned Butterfield Trail Airport
just north of Abilene. I had never met the two passen-
gers-to-be, but Phil, a nonpilot, was a fit, lean, future
Navy sailor who spoke often of his active wife and sis-
ter-in-law. I was ready to log some additional quality
time in my flying club’s Cessna Skyhawk 172 (N3707R).
At this point, I had been checked out in the club’s
Cessna 182 Skylane and its mighty 210 Centurion, but I
didn’t see the need for a larger, more expensive option.
Now I was in for a gut-wrenching surprise. My lack of
experience caused me to select an aircraft unsuitable
for the flight.
The flight to KDAL with Phil was pleasant and un-
eventful, and I anticipated the return flight would be
equally smooth. Love Field was Dallas’ primary airport
in 1967, and there was no delay entering its airspace and
getting taxi clearance to the general aviation area. We
did not wait long at the GA terminal for our passengers
to arrive.
What I felt when first meeting Tillie and her sister,
Emma, was a sense of astonished shock. These women
were not obese. They were, well...ladies of significant
size. And they each had a fairly large, old-style heavy
suitcase. I’m sure I silently gasped when I realized sud-
denly that our little Skyhawk was destined to be dra-
matically overweight. Overweight, that is, if we could
even fit them into the rear seats with their bags. We
were going to be massively overloaded and probably out
of balance. Should I tell my passengers, “No, I’m sorry.
We cannot do this”? Should I warn them of the risk?
As a weight/balance experiment with satchels of
bowling balls, I had once safely “test-flown” a friend’s
Skylane while being perhaps several hundred pounds
over the maximum takeoff weight. Perhaps somehow
by having completed this ill-advised and unauthorized
experiment, it validated my faulty decision to proceed.
Even if we could shoehorn the passengers and bag-
gage in, I knew we might have to abort. The Skyhawk
baggage area was about 90 pounds maximum, but the
18
space was too small to accommodate a large suitcase.
We discovered that we could partially squeeze one into
this minuscule space, thereby sacrificing a good deal of
headroom. The other bag would just have to ride on their
laps. Very uncomfortable, but it was only for an hour
and a half. At this point, I was just concerned whether
we could get airborne.
The weather briefing confirmed widely scattered
showers with hot, very humid conditions, and calm
winds. Not helpful conditions, to be sure, with high den-
sity altitude in effect.
I taxied to Runway 18, 8,000 feet in length, as I recall.
The tower said, “Cleared for takeoff. Right turnout ap-
proved.” We started our takeoff roll. And we rolled. I
was ready to abort if necessary. We kept rolling.
Not expecting to use more than about 4,000 feet, but
already passing that halfway point, I became aware
that we might not be airborne anytime soon. But lots
of pavement still remained. Finally, though, our speed
was sufficient and we lifted off, albeit very slowly. But
what is this? We weren’t climbing! If anything, we were
just mushing along. And we’re running out of runway!
Clearing the fence and crossing Mockingbird Lane, we
couldn’t have been more than 50 feet above passing
buildings. Any additional problem at this height could
have been catastrophic.
Some 20 minutes later, we were level at 6,500 feet
msl. Reaching the cooler altitude made things easier.
My passengers were silent but likely aware that we had
just been given a free pass by the powers that be. We
were grateful for our good fortune.
But the day was summed up with some valuable les-
sons subtly delivered and taken to heart. First, I learned
to never assume your passengers will weigh the average
standard of 170 pounds, as it was then. Don’t be reti-
cent about asking their weight and baggage sizes. Sec-
ond, know your aircraft’s capacities. It might be helpful
someday to know your storage area dimensions. Finally,
and perhaps most redundantly, always be prepared to
cancel your plans, even if that means unhappy passen-
gers and a bruised ego and wallet. }
RAYMOND HEDRICK is an 81-year-old retired private/instru-
ment pilot, aircraft owner, and air traffic controller residing
near Bakersfield, California. He now weighs 135 pounds.
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Celebrating 50 years
 PREFLIGHT
A FT ERM AT H
TRAG E DY I N T HE
T H IR D D IM ENS I O N
There’s quite a difference between simulated IFR and the real thing.
BY PETER GARRISON
ON A DECEMBER evening, a turboprop Piper Merid-
ian climbed out of Cody, Wyoming, for a 300-mile flight
to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The flight must have
been a pleasant one for the private pilot, 42, an ortho-
pedic surgeon who lived in Steamboat Springs. He had
a 40-knot tailwind at 25,000 feet and made a ground-
speed of more than 300 knots. When he left Cody,
Steamboat was reporting 4,500 broken and 7 miles.
Every reporting station along the route was VFR. The
forecast for his arrival called for VFR conditions with
some light snow in the vicinity and some mountain ob-
scuration to the east.
It was dark when he approached Steamboat Springs.
Cleared for the RNAV (GPS)-E approach for Runway
32 at Bob Adams Field (KSBS), he began his descent 20
minutes out, turned eastward at the initial approach fix,
HABRO, and then northward at MABKY intersection.
20
The design of the approach brings you up a valley
between high terrain to the east—where a number of
peaks rise above 10,000 feet—and 8,250-foot Quarry,
aka Emerald Mountain, to the west. The final approach
fix (FAF), PEXSA, is aligned with the runway; the 5.4
nm leg from MABKY to PEXSA, however, is oriented at
353 degrees and requires a left turn of 30 degrees onto
the 4.6 nm final approach course.
The field elevation at KSBS is 6,882 feet. Category A
minimums are nominally 1,300 and 1¼ with a mini-
mum descent altitude of 8,140 feet. The missed ap-
proach, begun at the runway threshold, calls for a
climbing left turn back to HABRO at 11,300 feet.
The descent profile specifies crossing altitudes of
9,700 feet at the FAF and 8,740 feet at an intermediate
iStock
fix, WAKOR, 2.4 nm from the FAF. From WAKOR to
the threshold is 2.2 nm. Once passing WAKOR, the pi-
 PREFLIGHT
A FT ERM AT H
lot could step down to the minimum altitude and start
looking for the runway.
The Meridian tracked the ground path of the ap-
proach with electronic precision. The profile was not
so perfect. The airplane crossed the FAF at 9,100 feet,
600 feet below the required altitude. At WAKOR it was
540 feet low and for all practical purposes already at the
minimum allowable altitude for the approach.
At WAKOR, rather than continue straight ahead to-
ward the runway, the Meridian began a left turn, sim-
ilar to the turn required for the missed approach but 2
miles short of the prescribed missed approach point.
The ground track of the turn, executed at standard rate,
had the same machine-like precision as previous phases
of the approach—but not the profile. Rather than im-
mediately climb to 11,300 feet, as the missed approach
required, the Meridian continued to descend, reaching
7,850 feet, less than 1,000 feet above the field elevation.
It then resumed climbing but not very rapidly. One min-
ute after beginning the left turn at 8,200 feet and on a
When the Meridian arrived,
the weather had deteriorated.
heading of 164 degrees, it collided with Quarry Moun-
tain. At the time of impact, the landing gear was in the
process of being retracted.
When the Meridian arrived in the vicinity of Steam-
boat, the weather had deteriorated to 1,200 feet overcast
and 1 mile visibility—below minimums for the approach.
The National Transportation Safety Board limited its
finding of probable cause to the statement that the pi-
lot had failed to adhere to the published approach pro-
cedure and speculated that he had become aware of the
below-minimums conditions only during the approach.
Indeed, he would have become aware of the low ceiling
by the time he reached WAKOR because he was already
practically at the minimum descent altitude there.
He was apparently unprepared for this unexpected
development.
The Meridian was equipped with a lot of fancy avion-
ics that recorded every detail of the approach, and the ac-
cident docket includes extensive graphic depictions of
those records. (These are not included in the published
report.) What is striking about them is the contrast be-
tween the undeviating steadiness of headings and the
large random fluctuations in airspeed, vertical speed,
and altitude, which are evidently being controlled by the
pilot. During the last two and a half minutes of the flight,
the Meridian’s airspeed fluctuated between 89 and 110
knots and its pitch attitude between minus-5 and plus-
10 degrees. Approaching WAKOR, its vertical speed was
zero. Crossing WAKOR and beginning the left turn, the
22
vertical speed first dipped to 1,500 fpm down, then, 10
seconds later, corrected to 1,300 fpm up. Ten seconds af-
ter that, it slumped again to zero before shooting back
up to 1,500 fpm, holding that rate momentarily and then
dropping again. The impact occurred a few seconds later.
The pilot’s logbook, which recorded 580 hours total
time with 43 hours of simulated instruments and 45
hours of actual, contained four instances of this same
GPS approach in the month preceding the accident. In
some of those log entries, no actual instrument time was
recorded, and at least two of them ended with a low ap-
proach but no landing. In some, if not all, of those ap-
proaches, the pilot was evidently practicing in VMC. Plots
of two of those approaches, one a month earlier and the
other a week earlier, display the same precision in ground
track as the one that led to the accident, so it appears that
he was relying on his autopilot for horizontal navigation.
Being based at KSBS and having repeatedly flown the
approach in good weather, the pilot would have been
aware that the terrain below him never rose above 7,000
feet. He might therefore have believed, consciously or un-
consciously, that as long as he didn’t get much below 8,000
feet, he wasn’t going to collide with anything. That idea
could have factored into his starting the missed approach
2 miles short of the runway. Or perhaps he simply forgot
about Quarry Mountain. Or, possibly, he made the deci-
sion to miss at WAKOR and began the turn without even
reflecting that an important element of any missed ap-
proach is the location at which it starts.
His unsteady control of airspeed and pitch attitude,
and his failure to retract the landing gear until a full
minute after beginning the miss, suggest a pilot unac-
customed to balked approaches and now struggling with
a novel situation. Anticipating VFR conditions, he had
not filed an alternate and would now have to make a new
plan and execute it in the air.
The difference between simulated instrument flying
and the real thing—compounded, in this case, by dark-
ness—is difficult for novice instrument pilots to imagine.
It is not just a matter of the complexity of the required ac-
tions. It is the effect that anxiety, uncertainty, or surprise
may have on your own capabilities. What looks like a dry
script on a piece of paper can become a gripping drama—
comedy or tragedy—when the human protagonist steps
onto the stage. }
This article is based on the National Transportation
Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to
bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not
intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions
about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead,
or any aircraft or accessory.
PETER GARRISON taught himself to use a slide rule and tin
snips, built an airplane in his backyard, and flew it to Japan.
He writes a monthly installment of Aftermath for FLYING
online as well. He has contributed to FLYING since 1968.
© 2023 Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.

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Forget juggling update cycles and data cards. With new PlaneSync ™ technology, your
databases are updated automatically via LTE or Wi-Fi ® links. Learn more at Garmin.com/PlaneSync
 PREFLIGHT
IN D EP T H

EXPANDING
THE CAMPAIGN
AT RENO
Vicky Benzing will use her success in the Sport Class to fly Unlimited
at what may be the last race of its kind.

BY JULIE BOATMAN

T
HE LAST RENO. The words sound so stark and signal an
abrupt end to the legendary competition (September 13 through
17) over the northern Nevada desert—particularly for the “Sep-
tember family” that calls it home. But at least one competitor
keeps her eyes focused on the positive, the milestones to achieve, and what
success around the pylons means for her future and that of closed-circuit
air racing.
Vicky Benzing hails from Northern California, growing up in San Jose.
After graduating from high school, she pursued a career in physical chemis-
try, eventually obtaining a Ph.D in the discipline from the University of Cal-
ifornia-Berkeley. But a lucrative position in the Silicon Valley tech industry
failed to hold onto her heart. Recognizing we have only so much time on the
planet, she switched gears about 20 years ago, turned toward aviation, and
practiced full time the aerosports she loves. Today she is based at Monterey
Airport (KMRY).
She’s a skydiver, holds an airline transport pilot certificate, and flies her
450 hp 1940 Stearman in air shows around the country. In 2008, she placed
in the top 10 in the Advanced category at the U.S. National Aerobatic Cham-
pionships in an Extra 300S. But it’s her past 13 years at the National Cham-
pionship Air Races in Reno that spark her forward the most. Benzing first
Courtesy of Tucker/Hess Productions

raced at the Reno-Stead Airport (KRTS) in 2010, winning her first heat flying
a Glasair SH-3R. She went on to become the “fastest woman at Reno” in 2015
in an L-139. And recently she’s topped the Sport Class Silver division with her
custom Lancair Legacy, Lucky Girl.
FLYING caught up with Benzing as she was preparing for Reno 2023—
hopeful to mark one more milestone at the storied event in the Unlimited
Class at the controls of a P-51 Mustang.

25
 Benzing first raced in ‘Cruse Missile,’ and now races in ‘Lucky Girl,’ but hopes to campaign ‘Miss Van Nuys,’ above.
FLYING Magazine (FM): How did you transition from
aerobatics and get your start at Reno? What was the first
airplane you brought to the races?
Vicky Benzing (VB): At the behest of Lee Behel, I
went to PRS [Pylon Racing Seminar] in my Extra and,
of course, the Extra is too slow to race. The Sport Class
was not yet oversubscribed…we hadn’t opened the class
up to [Van’s] RVs yet…so he asked me if I would race if he
could find an airplane for me. Vicki Cruse [an aerobatic
champion who died flying her Edge 540 at an airshow in
England in 2009] was a close friend. Lee purchased her
Glasair from her estate, and I raced it in her honor. She
had previously raced at Reno—it was Race 13— the Cruse
Missile. That airplane…had gremlins, and we always at-
tributed that to Vicki’s sense of humor. I won that first
race against Scott Nelson—I had to pass him to win the
race. I got the fire truck ride, and the second race, I was
on the pole, and when you’re a rookie, trying to find the
pylons is tough. In the chute, when I put the throttle
forward, I had a prop overspeed and very nearly lost the
prop. I managed to get the airplane on the runway. We
rebuilt the engine on that airplane, and I raced it the
following year, the race that the Galloping Ghost went
in, so we didn’t get to finish the race. So it wasn’t till the
third year that I actually got to race all the heat races.
Courtesy of Aidan Craddock
FM: From there, you went on to progress into the Jet Class,
as well as getting the right airplane to advance in the Sport
Class. Tell us about those experiences.
VB: In 2013, I raced the jet, Kermit, the L-39, and the
Cruse Missile. We tried to make the Cruse Missile go
faster with modifications—and I had a number of Lan-
26
cair “kills.” But it wasn’t as fast as all the Lancairs. I put a
rearview mirror in my cockpit, and I put a label on it that
said, “Lancairs belong here.” But I wanted to have an air-
plane that I could modify and work on on my own, and so
in 2014, I went out and bought Lucky Girl [a Lancair Leg-
acy]. I think the Cruse Missile was jealous, because Lee
took me to go look at Lucky Girl in Fresno, California, and
on the way, the Cruse Missile threw a fit and had a prop
overspeed, and we ended up landing at the former Cas-
tle Air Force Base—Merced Airport [KMCE] now. Lucky
Girl’s a fast stock Lancair, and through the years I’ve just
modified her bit by bit, with bigger pistons, and last year,
nitrous [oxide, a performance booster], and we’ll proba-
bly run nitrous this year.
FM: In 2015, you became the fastest woman at Reno. How
did you come by that milestone?
VB: I raced the jet again in 2014, and then Dianna Stan-
ger called me up to race her jet, Darkstar, an L-139, in
2015, and that’s when I became the fastest woman ever
at Reno, ’cause I was clocked on the course at 469.831
mph, which was the same speed as one of the other guys
did. And he clocked it first before me, so I ended up be-
hind him in the order. Last year I raced Robin, the yel-
low jet [L-39]. Jets [are] a different deal—it’s really high
G loading, especially for the really fast ones. You kind of
say, “400 mph, 4 Gs; 500 mph, 5 Gs,” but that’s continu-
ous, so if you if hit wake, or fly unevenly, you’re hitting
even higher Gs.
FM: You moved up to the top of the Sport Class Silver rank-
ings regularly over the past few years in Lucky Girl. But
you’ve had other dramatic moments in the race that stand out.
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 QUICK
6
VB: From 2014 to present, I’ve raced Lucky Girl. My en-
gine quit in the cooldown [lap]. I came out on downwind
in the cooldown and went to land, and the engine quit. I
was like, “What? You’re kidding me.” And those airplanes
come down so quickly. I was basically over [Runway] 8,
and I made the left turn to land on 32, and I barely got on
the runway, barely got out of the turn before I made the
runway. They are not gliders.
Is there anyone living or dead that you would most like to
FM: For this year, you plan to campaign a special airplane. fly with?
How did you come to buy a classic warbird?
Beryl Markham
VB: So I bought Clay Lacy’s P-51 [Miss Van Nuys] in 2019,
and Steve Hinton Jr. has been restoring it, and it became If you could fly any aircraft that you haven’t yet flown, what
a much bigger project than it started out as. The idea of would it be?
purchasing the aircraft was to put it on the racecourse at
Reno because it’s an historic aircraft [see “In Depth,” Is- The space shuttle
sue 938] but also to fly it at airshows, because I think air-
planes like that deserve to be seen. I think, as a woman,
What is your favorite airport or airshow?
there are not that many opportunities to fly warbirds. I I love going up to the Arlington SkyFest airshow in Wash-
would love to be the person who is at the [Commemora- ington state, with the backdrop of the Cascades.
tive Air Force] museum wrenching on airplanes, but I just
don’t have time to do that with doing the shows. I had to What do you believe has been the biggest innovation
make an opportunity for myself to fly a warbird. I went breakthrough or event in aviation?
to Stallion 51 to get training—and I swore up and down
to my husband I was not going to buy a P-51. He bought The moving map. I learned to fly IFR in 1990 with needles
me a little model for my desk. But Clay is my neighbor at and gauges, and the map changed everything.
Pine Mountain Lake, and I heard that his Mustang was
for sale. It took a little talking to my husband and asking What is one important life lesson you’ve learned
Clay if he would sell it to me. from racing?

Very small things matter.

FM: But the care and feeding of a warbird takes time and
investment. Share with us the story of bringing an historic When you’re not flying, what do you like to do most?
P-51 to the Unlimited Class.
Riding my bike along the California coast
VB: [Miss Van Nuys] had never been restored since it
was built in 1944—never been overhauled. The last time
an engine had been put in it was 1976 [after Lacy’s last
time racing it at Reno in 1972]. I would be surprised if
there was 100 hours on that engine. We were just go-
ing to bring it back up to snuff, but then one thing led
to another. And that led to paint, and can you paint the
cockpit, can you change the instrument panel? And then
going through the airplane, we found a crack in the tail,
so it had to come off. Steve is in the process of paint-
ing it—we got delayed by paint because we had a custom
color mix, [a purple that is an exact match to the original
shade]. We ordered it in September [2022], and we got
it in April. We put in a water bar system for racing; the
wing was profiled to make it smooth for racing. We put
all the antennas inside the airplane. One of the things
that I really like about racing is the modifications that
you do to your airplane are there forever. If you’re us-
ing it for commuting or flying here to there, you’re go-
ing a lot faster because of the investment you’ve made
Jeff Benzing

in the airplane. My Lancair Legacy Lucky Girl cruises

all day long at 2,500 rpm and full throttle, 5,500 feet,
at 250 knots. [ Benzing tops the podium for the Sport Class Silver.
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FLYTHEFIELDS.COM
FLYTHEFIELDS.COM/AMENITIES
RELAX
AT THE FIELDS
what’s next in
new aircraft
We round up the latest entrants in the wide world of FLYING.

BY FLY ING STAFF

 C ESS NA C ITATI ON ASCE ND
Since Citation Excel deliveries began in 1998, Textron Avi- passenger seats, and improved acoustical insulation
ation (née Cessna Aircraft) has delivered more than 1,100 to soak up sound. The 8-inch dropped aisle has been
units, making it the firm’s most successful jet in its 96- filled in to create a flat floor. However, the dropped
year history. Based on the XLS series, the newest iteration aisle remains an option for customers needing more
of the model, the Ascend, offers a number of features de- center cabin headroom.
signed to extend the winning streak, including the more The Honeywell RE100 now is approved for unat-
fuel efficient Pratt & Whitney Canada PW545D turbo- tended operation, freeing both flight crewmembers to
fans, an upgrade from the Collins Pro Line 21 to Garmin focus on essential preflight chores. A host of other up-
G5000 avionics with standard auto- grades endows the Ascend with lev-
throttles, increased payload, and more Price: $16.725 MILLION els of comfort, quiet, convenience,
range. Scheduled maintenance intervals Engines: PRATT & WHITNEY and connectivity on par with Tex- Tex-
have been stretched to 800 flight hours PW545D (2) tron Aviation’s larger super-midsize
or 18 months, whichever comes first. Projected Max Speed: 441 ktas aircraft. First deliveries are set to be-
Textromn

The Ascend has new and larger flight Range: 2,100 nm gin in 2025.
deck and cabin windows, upgraded First Delivery: 2025 —With reporting by Fred George
 DASSAULT FALCON 10X

The growth of the Dassault Aviation infrastructure that looks more like that of a penthouse living room
at the Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport (LFBD) in western than an aluminum tube. It has already received several
France can be attributed to the success of the Rafale nods in international design competitions, including
fighter series, and the Falcon 7X and 8X, as well as the the Red Dot award from the Design Society of the U.K.
upcoming introduction of the 6X—and its big brother, With a range of 7,500 nm at Mach 0.85—and a top
the 10X. Dassault began parts assembly in 2022 to pre- speed of Mach 0.925—the 10X is powered by a pair
pare for the final assembly of the first test articles un- of bespoke Rolls-Royce Pearl 10X powerplants rated
derway this year. The all-composite wing is being built at 18,000 pounds of thrust apiece and able to run on
at a dedicated facility in Biarritz. 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). On the
The 10X, announced in 2021, has had a long slow flight deck, the 10X gives pilots the FalconEye com-
buildup, fitting for a jet that will be the bined vision system, as well as carrying
largest built by Dassault and introduce Price: $75 MILLION over the digital flight control system
the largest cabin of any jet purpose-built Engines: ROLLS-ROYCE (DFCS) made popular on the 7X. As the

for the business aviation sector. That
cabin features a new design path for the
company, breaking out of the traditional
mold with bold colorways and seating
PEARL 10X (2)
Projected Max MMO: 0.925
Range: 7,500 nm
First Delivery: LATE 2025
Dassault Aviation
Dassault pilots finish up flight tests on
the 6X and move to the first 10X test
platform later this year, perhaps, we’re
certainly eyeing them with envy.

36
 DASSAULT FALCON 6X

Long before pilots will get their hands on the DFCS tions at sea level and at the maximum takeoff weight
sticks of the 10X, however, Dassault’s Falcon 6X will of 77,460 pounds.
entice them to the flight deck. In the home stretch of The 6X showed off its graceful, powerful ability to
type certification under the European Union Aviation maneuver at the Paris Air Show in late June at the
Safety Agency (EASA)—set to happen any moment as hands of pilots Philippe Duchateau and Fabrice Valette.
this FLYING Buyers’ Guide goes to press—the 6X will Visitors to the display could sit on the flight deck and
lead the next generation of Falcons with its dual Pratt witness the four large-format displays, two tablets
& Whitney PW812D engines. Rated at up to 14,000 mounted on either pilot side, and roundly shaped ped-
pounds thrust, the powerplants will propel the wide- estals from which to stabilize while entering data into
body, long-range 6X to a range of up to 5,500 nm at the flight management system. It’s a well-thought-
Mach 0.80 and a max cruise speed of Mach 0.925. out cockpit design, with pilot-friendly touches in and
The 6X preserves the relative short- around the instrument panel, such as
field performance of its predecessors, Price: $47 MILLION EFB mounts. We watched passersby
with the capability to operate out of Engines: PRATT & WHITNEY stroll in front of the nose through the
Dassault Aviation

3,000-foot runways with a partial fuel PW812D (2) head-up display with the FalconEye
load. Projected Max MMO: 0.925 cutting through the gray and bringing
The balanced field length for take- Range: 5,500 nm everything ahead of the airplane into
off will be 5,480 feet under ISA condi- First Delivery: LATE 2023 sharp focus.

37
 GUL FST REAM G700

The race to certify the next long-range mount is neck- tralong category, routinely cruising at 45,000 to 49,000
in-neck between the Falcon 6X and the Gulfstream feet. In the conclusion of the flight test program, the
G700—and whichever makes it across the finish line G700 continued to set city-pair speed records. It flew
first will be the toast of the large-cabin crowd. With its into the European Business Aviation Conference and
paperwork filed and everything over but the shouting, Expo (EBACE) and Paris on up to 30 percent SAF and
the bird from Savannah, Georgia, first announced in marked a memorable flight from Savannah to Tokyo on
2019 is expected to begin deliveries by the end of the SAF at an average speed of Mach 0.89.
year as well. And what’s in it for the pilot? A fa-
The G700, which takes its strength Price: $78 MILLION miliar Symmetry Flight Deck up front,
from the Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 power- Engines: ROLLS-ROYCE PEARL paired with Gulfstream’s Enhanced
plants, can carry up to 19 passengers— 700 (2) Flight System, that you’d find on the
and sleep up to 13—in as many as five Projected Max MMO: 0.925 G500 and G600, making the G700 a
flexible living spaces. The 7,500 nm range Range: 7,500 nm straightforward transition for aviators
(at Mach 0.85) puts it squarely in the ul- First Delivery: LATE 2023 stepping up.

Gulfstream

38
 GUL FSTREAM G800

The higher model number ascribed to the Gulfstream ponents in worldwide environments and operating
G800—sister ship to the G700—refers to the increase in conditions—to the Paris Air Show.
range customers can expect when the platform debuts A second test aircraft first flew on July 15 on a blend
in a couple of years. Yes, topping the charts at 8,000 of 30 percent SAF and reached a top speed of Mach
nm, the G800 achieves this on the same wing as the 0.935 during the mission.
G700 by shortening the length of the fuselage and re- Sitting up front, the familiar Symmetry Flight Deck
ducing the number of living areas to four. offers pilots a total of 10 display screens up front—four
The G800, currently in the heart of its flight test large-format ones across the front left to right, and six
program, achieves the target distance powered by the smaller touchscreen displays that can be configured in
same Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 powerplants, at 18,250 nearly endless ways depending on the phase of flight,
pounds of thrust each, at Mach 0.85. If you want to pilot preference, or during abnormal and emergency
go faster—and sacrifice 1,000 nm of operations.
range—push it up to Mach 0.90. Or just Price: $72.5 MILLION The predictive landing performance
get there fast by taking a shorter seg- Engines: ROLLS-ROYCE PEARL system works in the background
ment at Mach 0.925. 700 (2) to help prevent runway overruns—
Gulfstream

Gulfstream’s flight test crew flew Projected Max MMO: 0.925 though the G800 is projected to mark a
the first test article with a finished in- Range: 8,000 nm 6,000 takeoff distance at its max gross
terior—used for proving those com- First Delivery: 2024 weight of 105,600 pounds.

39
 GUL FST REAM G400
Close kin to the G500 and G600, Gulfstream’s next 0.90 and a maximum cruise altitude of 51,000 feet. And
answer to the large-cabin midsize question, the G400, that’s done more efficiently than on previous Gulfst-
takes its lineage from its bigger siblings. The OEM ream models. The combination of the advanced Pratt &
stretched the fuselage to 36 feet, 4 inches and lever- Whitney PW812GA powerplants, wing with improved
aged Symmetry Flight Deck technology from the larger aerodynamics, and avionics management should real-
models to create an advanced jet boasting a best-in- ize up to 30 percent in greater fuel efficiency as com-
class cabin cross section with up to 2.5 living areas, pared to a G450 on a hypothetical 3,000 nm journey
with 100 percent fresh air that is re- with eight passengers at Mach 0.85.
freshed every two minutes. Price: $34.5 MILLION The G400 is in development along-
Those fortunate passengers (up to Engines: PRATT & WHITNEY side the G700 and G800, with its first
12, sleeping as many as five) will enjoy PW812GA (2) test aircraft delivered internally and
Gulfstream

the G400’s projected 4,200 nm range Projected Max MMO: 0.90 poised for a first flight later this year.
at Mach 0.85 settings—that’s Geneva to Range: 4,200 nm Gulfstream predicts the airplane’s en-
Minneapolis—and a top speed of Mach First Delivery: LATE 2025 try into service will be in 2025.

40
 BOMBAR DI ER GLOBAL 8000

The gauntlet thrown down in the ultralong-range mar-
ket appears to be a spitting match between the Gulf-
stream G800 and Bombardier’s latest entrant in the
Global series, the 8000. Yes, that 8000 translates di-
rectly into the expected range of the new luxury plat-
form—but the Montreal-based OEM wants to not just
equal but win on speed. Try Mach 0.94,
according to the manufacturer’s latest Price: $78 MILLION
claims. Engines: GENERAL ELECTRIC
And it wants to achieve that speed PASSPORT (2)
and agility with the ability to ride the bumps well. Like
its competitors from Savannah, the 8000’s max alti-
tude is 51,000 feet, and it will maintain a cabin altitude
of 2,900 feet at FL 410. Up front, the Bombardier Vision
flight deck on the Global 7500 will assist pilots in man-
aging both short and long segments. Four large-format
displays sit between two EFB mounts,
supplemented by the head-up display
available for both the left and right
seat. A fully loaded Global 8000—

Bombardier
without sacrificing passenger comfort. Projected Max MMO: 0.94 at 114,850 pounds—is anticipated to
Bombardier has developed what it calls Range: 8,000 nm need just 5,760 feet for takeoff, with a
the Smooth Flex Wing to blend control First Delivery: 2025 landing distance of 2,237 feet.

41
 H ON DAJ ET 2600

In a follow-up to the introduction of the HondaJet 2600
concept at the National Business Aviation Association’s
(NBAA) convention & exhibition in October 2021,
Honda Aircraft has made its next move in bringing the
new model into its lineup. In June, the OEM revealed
that development continues on the project, with its of-
ficial “commercialization” or plan to pursue type cer-
tification on the clean-sheet light jet.
Intended to be a midsize jet in a Price: TBD
Engine: WILLIAMS INTERNATIONAL
efficiency than other light jets and a 40 percent im-
provement over midsize models.
FAA type certification should come in 2028, with en-
try into service as a single-pilot-operated platform. Up
to 11 people can be seated on board, with the option for
nine or 10 passengers depending on crew requirements.
Supply partners include Garmin for the G3000 flight
deck, Williams International and its
FJ44-4C engines, Spirit AeroSystems
Honda Aircraft Co.

light jet’s body, the HondaJet 2600
is aimed at a 2,625 nm range (four
passengers and one pilot, NBA A
IFR) and 450 ktas maximum cruise
speed—but at 20 percent better fuel
providing the fuselage, and Aernnova
FJ44-4C (2) for aerostructures. Fabrication of the
Max Speed: 450 ktas first airframe is underway as Honda
Range: 2,625 nm Aircraft completes initial engineer-
Expected Type Certification: 2028 ing on the program.

42
 B EEC H CRAFT DENAL I

Textron Aviation marked an important rite of passage powerplant installation includes FADEC and an auto-
in any airplane’s development program—its first ap- throttle—necessary for Garmin Autoland certification.
pearance at EAA AirVenture in late July. The Wich- On the business end, the clean-sheet GE Catalyst en-
ita, Kansas-based OEM flew its third test article to the gine is proving worthy of the investment in it, according
show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin—called “P2” in company to test pilots. As of May, the program included 26 en-
parlance to designate the conforming airplane with a gines built, with more than 5,400 hours of testing—fig-
full interior for that phase of the flight test campaign. ures that increase every day. The McCauley prop on the
There’s a lot you can understand much more imme- front is helping the combination to achieve even greater
diately than you can with a mock-up. First, the air- fuel efficiency than originally projected. The Denali will
plane feels like it stands roughly the be certified with flight into known ic-
same height as its Beechcraft breth- Price: $5.999 MILLION ing (FIKI) capability, completing what
ren, the King Air 200 series. Once on Engine: GENERAL ELECTRIC CAT- Textron Aviation calls “a jet-like ex-

board, the ergonomics of the Garmin
G3000 integrated flight deck harken
to the Cessna CJ series but with the fa-
miliarity of the Brand G avionics. The
Textron Aviation
ALYST (1) perience.” Still, certification isn’t ex-
Projected Max Speed: 285 ktas pected until 2025, recognizing the
Range: 1,600 nm significant work remaining to bring a
First Delivery : 2025 new turboprop engine to market.
 E XTRA 330SX

The first production Extra 330SX may not be taking
to the skies until next year, but the new single-canopy,
aerobatic airplane is already spoken for. At a presen-
tation at EAA AirVenture, company president Marcus
Extra introduced Bill Freeman as the first customer.
The Extra 330SX improves upon the 330SC with
better cooling up front on the 315 hp Lycoming and a
Garmin G3X Touch flight display. The
sporty airplane features high-perfor- Price: TBD
mance ailerons, with 60 percent larger Engine: LYCOMING AEIO-580 (1)
rate, which the company measures by mounting a Go-
Pro in the airplane, taking it out for a series of rolls,
then returning that video to the engineering team to
calculate the rate. Other improvements in the cockpit
are proposed to deliver greater pilot comfort, including
a taller stick with reduced side-to-side travel to better
accommodate larger pilots—like Extra, who flew the
airplane earlier this summer in a com-
petition in Germany for the first time.
The first deliveries will take place in
Extra Aircraft

horns and modified wing tips, along Top Speed (VNE): 220 kias 2024, with the company ramping up
with a reduced fuselage length. The Max Gs: +/-10 Gs its production space in DeLand, Flor-
combination leads to its stunning roll First Delivery: Mid-2024 ida, to meet the challenge.

44
 VAN’S RV-1 5

Van’s Aircraft debuted its first high-wing model at Air-
Venture 2022. Once more it flew the prototype to Os-
hkosh for the air show this summer with a few updates
made to the still mostly mysterious kit in progress.
Most take a bit of sleuthing to determine, but they in-
clude changes to the stabilator and anti-servo tab to
improve stability and stick forces.
The ailerons have also been reshaped slightly, with
hinge points moved, and changes made to the internal
control system gearing influence stick throw. Van's test
pilots already report improved stick
forces and control harmony. Kit Price: TBD
internally, following legacy high-wing designs with this
increase in pilot/passenger protection in the event of
an accident.
With the wing moving back about 4 inches, Van's will
see benefits to load carrying and CG—and allow for the
use of lighter powerplants than the current Lycoming
IO-390, though it's expected to be the core engine.
The airframe features unique, damped landing
gear intended to smooth out vagaries in both pilot and
runway surface. Van’s is sticking to its previously an-
nounced plan to begin taking deposits
12 to 18 months after the airplane’s de-

Stephen Yeates
The prototype stills runs from a fuel Engine: LYCOMING IO-390 (on but. It is likely to need at least six more
tank located in the cabin. Van’s plans prototype) months to get the design pinned down
to build new wings that will mount the Max Cruise Speed: TBD and prepare to build kits.
fuel tanks, reported at 60 gallons total, First Kit Delivery: TBD —With reporting by Marc Cook
 T ECN AM P -MENTOR

Tecnam Aircraft debuted its P-Mentor at EAA AirVen- sumption results in up to nine operating hours between
ture 2023, though the airplane is already approved refuelings.
under EASA CS 23, the equivalent to FAA Part 23 certi- Powered by a FADEC-equipped Rotax 912iSC3 pow-
fication. The P-Mentor, featured and test flown in FLY- erplant, the heavier-than-an-LSA P-Mentor shows
ING’s Issue 939, should see the agency's nod in early graceful handling characteristics and docile slow flight
2024, according to the company. and stall behavior. Takeoff ground roll at less than
The P-Mentor is a two-seat aircraft designed to be a max gross was around 1,000 feet, with a landing roll
primary training platform, equipped with Garmin G3X less than that on a grass strip at the company’s head-
Touch and GTN 650Xi avionics and boasting almost un- quarters in Capua, Italy. The comfortable cockpit can
heard-of fuel economy at 3.7 gallons per also accept a Garmin GFC 500 autopi-
hour. Price: $350,750 lot for serious cross-country and IFR
This low consumption translates Engine: ROTAX 912iSC3 (1) operations. Several flight schools in
to low operating costs for owners and Max Cruise Speed: 117 ktas the U.S. signed orders for the trainer
Jim Payne

renters—and means lower carbon diox- Range: 950 nm at AirVenture.

ide emissions. The P-Mentor’s fuel con- First U.S. Delivery: 2024 —With reporting by Amy Wilder

46
 E LI X I R AIRCRAFT

Elixir Aircraft, based in La Rochelle, France, has also focused on identifying varying learning styles and
posted a sales streak for the training version of its steering those pilot applicants toward success. The
aircraft, with a deal closed in June on more than 100 composite airframe is built through the One-Shot man-
units—50 on option—with Sierra Charlie Aviation in ufacturing process to reduce parts count.
Scottsdale, Arizona. The agreement caps a growing or- Elixir delivered five of its 912iS versions in 2022
der book for the OEM as it brings three versions of its for a total of more than 10 made so far by press time.
single-engine airplane to market. The company was founded in 2015 by a
Most of the models—intended for Price: AROUND $300,000 trio of engineers who sought to reduce
flight training—feature the 100 hp Ro- Engine: ROTAX 912iS (1) costs in flight training by lowering parts
tax 912iS powerplant with a full-glass Max Cruise Speed: 130 ktas count and increasing efficiency in train-
(EASA)

Julie Boatman
cockpit. Sierra Charlie Aviation plans ing aircraft. The first model achieved
to integrate the airplanes into its Avia- Range: 1,000 nm initial EASA CS 23 type certification in
tion Career Program, an ab initio course First U.S. Delivery: 2024 2020, with FAA validation pending.
 J ETS

REACHING
THE SERVICE
CEILING
The jet market softens after a period of COVID-induced thrust.

BY FRED GEORGE

Cirrus Aircraft
The business jet market, paralleling the flight path of the general economy, is leveling off
after two years of post-COVID soaring. The flattening is more pause than plateau, says Rolland Vincent,

head of the market research and consultant company bearing his name in Plano, Texas.

“Nothing surprises me,” says Vincent. “We were on a
sugar high in 2021 and 2022, fed by essentially free
money. Now with middle single-digit loan rates, we’re
getting back to a more normal market.”
Adds Ron Epstein, senior equity analyst at Bank of
America: “The COVID recovery was kind of a weird
thing. We’re getting back to a normal [growth] trajec-
tory pre-COVID.”
Rising interest rates haven’t yet been much of a
damper on new aircraft sales, as up to 60 percent to
70 percent of purchases now are all cash or 50 percent
cash down/50 percent financing. Less than one-third
involve a large loan. Some buyers look at 6 percent air-
craft loan rates in relation to the 8 percent returns
they’re making on investments, so they’re choosing to
finance aircraft purchases rather than tying up cash.
The current market cooldown is more related to sup-
ply chain snags, particularly as noted by the heads of
Bombardier, Dassault, and Gulfstream. Éric Martel,
Bombardier’s CEO, says fewer of the firm’s suppliers
have problems, but the remaining ones have systemic
issues that need remedial work. Bombardier has its
own specialists embedded with key suppliers to pro-
vide support should issues arise.
Dassault chief Éric Trappier points out that supply
chain issues in 2023 are worse than last year, partly from
the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some materi-
als, such as titanium, are in short supply, and European
aerospace manufacturer’s energy costs have soared. In
mid-July, Trappier disclosed that sales had slowed in the
first half of 2023 as compared to the same period in 2022
in large part because of the war in Ukraine.

AIRCRAFT MAKE/MODEL MFR BASE PRICE ENGINE SEATS MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT FULL FUEL PAYLOAD
JETS

Bombardier Challenger 3500 $27.2 million 2 x Honeywell HTF7350 up to 10 40,600 lb. 1,800 lb.
Bombardier Challenger 650 $33 million 2 x General Electric CF34-3B MTO up to 12 48,200 lb. 1,150 lb.
Bombardier Global 5500 $47.4 million 2 x Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 up to 16 92,500 lb. 2,639 lb.
Bombardier Global 6500 $58 million 2 x Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 up to 17 99,500 lb. 2,470 lb.
Bombardier Global 7500 $81 million 2 x General Electric Passport up to 19 114,850 lb. 1,890 lb.
Cessna Citation M2 Gen2 $6.15 million* 2 x Williams FJ44-1AP-21 7 10,700 lb. 3,810 lb. useful ld
Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 $11.86 million* 2 x Williams FJ44-4A 10 17,110 lb. 6,950 lb. useful ld
Cessna Citation Latitude $19.78 million* 2 x Pratt & Whitney PW306D1 9 30,800 lb. 12,394 lb. useful ld
Cessna Citation Longitude $29.99 million* 2 x Honeywell HTF7700L 12 39,500 lb. 16,100 lb. useful ld
Cirrus Vision Jet G2+ $3.29 million* 1 x Williams FJ33-5A 7 6,000 lb. 1,400 lb. mx pyld
Dassault Falcon 7X $54.2 million 3 x Pratt & Whitney PW307A 12 - 14 70,000 lb. 3,988 lb.
Dassault Falcon 8X $63.8 million 3 x Pratt & Whitney PW307D 12 - 14 73,000 lb. 1,959 lb. mxpyld
Dassault Falcon 2000LXS $44.7 million* 2 x P&W PW308C 8 -10 42,800 lb. 2,755 lb.
Dassault Falcon 900LX $36 million 3 x HoneywellTFE731-60 12 -14 49,000 lb. 2,480 lb.
Embraer Phenom 100EV $4.495 million 2 x Pratt & Whitney PW617F1-E 6 or 8 10,703 lb. 647 lb. mx pyld
Embraer Phenom 300E $10.295 million 2 x Pratt & Whitney PW535E1 8 or 11 18,552 lb. 1,586 lb. mx pyld
Embraer Praetor 500 $17.995 million 2 x Honeywell HTF7500E 2+9 37,567 lb. 1,610 lb. mx pyld
Embraer Praetor 600 $21.495 million 2 x Honeywell HTF7500E 2 + 12 42,858 lb. 2,194 lb. mx pyld
Gulfstream G280 $24.5 million* 2 x Honeywell HTF7250G 8 - 10 + 2 39,600 lb. 4,050 lb. mx pyld
Gulfstream G500 $49.5 million* 2 x Pratt & Whitney PW814GA up to 19 79,600 lb. 5,250 lb. mx pyld
Gulfstream G600 $59.5 million* 2 x Pratt & Whitney PW815GA up to 19 94,600 lb. 6,540 lb. mx pyld
Gulfstream G650ER $70.5 million* 2 x Rolls-Royce BR725 up to 19 103,600 lb. 6,500 lb. mx pyld
Gulfstream

HondaJet Elite II $6.95 million* 2 x GE Honda HF120 1+7 11,100 lb. 3,974 lb. useful ld
Pilatus PC-24 $12.2 million** 2 x Williams FJ44-4A 1 + 11 18,300 lb. 715 lb.
*MANUFACTURERS 2024 PRICING; **TYPICALLY EQUIPPED LIST PRICE; OTHERS VALIDATED BY CONKLIN & DEDECKER; SUBJECT TO CHANGE

50
FUEL BURN MAX SPEED NBAA IFR RANGE STALL/VREF SPD TAKEOFF FIELD LENGTH LANDING DISTANCE

NA 0.83 Mach 3,400 nm NA 4,835 ft. 2,308 ft.

NA 0.85 Mach 4,000 nm NA 5,640 ft. 2,402 ft.
NA 0.90 Mach 5,900 nm NA 5,340 ft. 2,207 ft.
NA 0.90 Mach 6,600 nm NA 6,145 ft. 2,236 ft.
NA 0.925 Mach 7,700 nm NA 5,760 ft. 2,237 ft.
830 pph 404 ktas 1,550 nm 83 kias 3,210 ft. 2,590 ft.
1,299 pph 451 ktas 2,165 nm 86 kias 3,410 ft. 2,940 ft.
1,770 pph 446 ktas 2,700 nm NA 3,580 ft. 2,480 ft.
1,810 pph 483 ktas 3,500 nm NA 4,810 ft. 3,170 ft.
442 pph 311 ktas 1,275 nm 60 kcas 2,036 ft. 1,628 ft. ground roll
2,210 pph 0.90 Mach 5,950 nm 104 kias (VREF) 5,710 ft. balanced field 2,070 ft.
2,240 pph 0.90 Mach 6,450 nm 107 kias (VREF) 5,880 ft. balanced field 2,220 ft. over 50-ft. obs
1,480 pph 0.86 Mach 4,000 nm 105 kias (VREF) 4,675 ft. 2,260 ft.
1,620 pph 0.87 Mach 4,750 nm 110 kias (VREF) 5,360 ft. 2,415 ft.
88 gph 406 ktas 1,178 nm 95 ktas 3,190 ft. 2,473 ft.
124 gph 464 ktas 2,010 nm 103 ktas 3,209 ft. 2,212 ft.
214 gph 466 ktas 3,340 nm 101 ktas 4,222 ft. 2,086 ft.
236 gph 466 ktas 4,018 nm 104 ktas 4,717 ft. 2,165 ft.
NA 0.85 Mach 3,600 nm 115 kias (VREF) 4,750 ft. 2,365 ft. std config
NA 0.925 Mach 5,300 nm 117 kias (VREF) 5,300 ft. 2,645 ft. std config
NA 0.925 Mach 6,600 nm 109 kias (VREF) 5,700 ft. 2,365 ft. std config
NA 0.925 Mach 7,500 nm 115 kias (VREF) 6,299 ft. 2,445 ft. std config
638 pph/392 ktas/FL430 422 ktas 1,547 nm 108 ktas 3,699 ft. MTOW 2,717 ft. 4 pax/NBAA
159 gph 438 ktas 2,129 nm 82 kias 2,930 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,120 ft. over 50-ft. obs

51
 Gulfstream president Mark Burns says that while sup-
ply chains are constricted, the Savannah, Georgia, firm
began reordering parts and materials two years ago, re-
sulting in fewer challenges. Phebe Novakovic, CEO and
chairman of General Dynamics, Gulfstream’s parent
company, has modestly scaled back projected deliveries
for 2023.
There’s an upside to supply chain snags, says Epstein,
because “it prevents anybody from spoiling the party be-
cause it forces production discipline.” Simply put, man-
ufacturers cannot flood the market with an oversupply
of airplanes.
Market growth also is being constricted by aircraft cer-
tification delays. Similar to many other organizations,
the FAA encouraged many employees to work remotely
during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several staff members
have been reluctant to move back to FAA offices after ex-
periencing the freedom and flexibility of their remote
workplaces. Industry observers claim sparsely staffed
FAA certification offices are creating long delays in pa-
perwork processing.
In addition, the FAA has doubled down on its aircraft
certification checks in the wake of the Boeing 737 Max de-
bacle, delaying by several months the type certification of
the Dassault Falcon 6X and Gulfstream G700 and G800,
plus potentially the Beechcraft Denali in 2025.
Prospects for smaller turbofan aircraft already in pro-
duction remain bright. Cirrus, for instance, delivered 90 eclipsed its archrival, the Cessna Citation CJ1+, a light jet
single-engine SF50 Vision Jets in 2022, according to the that was $1 million more expensive and somewhat slower.
General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) The Phenom 100’s introductory price was on par with
aircraft shipment report. Demand for the entry-level Vi- the Cessna CE-510 Mustang, but its cabin cross section
sion Jet remains strong because it’s an easy step up from was nearly as big as the Learjet 45. The Phenom 100’s tall
Cirrus’ piston singles, owing to its combination of docile stance and airstair door made it look even larger than its
handling, human-centered flight deck design, passenger actual size, adding to its perceived value. Owner pilots
amenities, and top-notch customer support. It’s very sim- also favored the Phenom 100’s Garmin G1000 avionics
ilar to the success that Cessna enjoyed 50 years ago when package over the CJ1+’s Collins Pro Line 21 system.
it introduced the mild-performing, twin-turbofan Cita- Three years later, Textron Aviation responded by de-
tion 500 as a modest step-up product from its 300- and livering Citation M2, a CJ1 variant with more thrust,
400-series piston twins. Garmin G3000 avionics, a plusher interior than the Em-
The Vision Jet is the only turbofan aircraft as of yet braer, a 40-plus-knot cruise speed advantage, 160 nm
to offer both a standard airframe parachute system and more range, and a more attractive price tag than CJ1+.
Garmin Autoland—branded Safe Return—providing Within a few years, M2 took the sales lead from Embraer
unsurpassed peace of mind to occupants. Similar to the in this class and it clearly has maintained it. M2 steadily
long-term growth plan that Cessna had with its Citation is catching the Phenom 100 in total sales, with Textron
500 family, Cirrus is expected to develop faster, higher, now having delivered more than 340 Citation M2 jets
and farther-flying turbofan aircraft as follow-on prod- compared to Embraer’s 400-plus Phenom 100 aircraft.
ucts to the Vision Jet. As FLYING previously reported, M2 deliveries also surpass those of HA-420 HondaJet,
Cirrus Aircraft filed for a $300 million initial public despite the latter’s having a roomier cabin, higher cruise
offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to provide speeds and, arguably, the quietest interior in the light jet
funds for new aircraft development and increased pro- class. The Citation, however, offers superior runway per-
duction capacity, among other growth goals. formance and a roughly $800,000 lower price.
Deliveries in the light jet twin-turbofan market con- Veteran buyers also are keen on product support, giv-
tinue slowly to decline, in large part because of the steep ing Textron Aviation a major competitive edge over Em-
drop in demand for Embraer Phenom 100-series aircraft, braer and Honda Aircraft, according to some industry
Pilatus Aircraft

once the most popular light jet by a wide margin. observers. Textron Aviation delivered nearly double the
Phenom 100 deliveries soared during its first two full number of M2 jets in 2022 compared to the HondaJet,
production years (2009-2010) for the 100, with Embraer and it’s on track to preserve a similar margin in 2023.
producing nearly 200 units. The Phenom 100 completely Phenom 100 comes in a distant third.

Competition in the upper end of the light jet market
is far different. Three competitors, Embraer’s Phenom
300E and Textron Aviation’s Citation CJ3+ and CJ4
Gen2 face off. The Brazilian offering has compelling
advantages—biggest cabin volume, lowest cabin alti-
tude, longest range, highest cruise speed, and smallest
price. Phenom 300/300E deliveries, as a result, now ex-
ceed those of CJ3+ and CJ4 Gen2 combined. The Phe-
nom 300 also siphoned off so many Learjet 75 orders
that Bombardier was compelled to shut down produc-
tion. Notably, the Phenom 300 has been the best-selling
light jet for more than a decade. And it’s the only light
jet to be purchased by all three major fractional air-
craft operators—NetJets, Flexjet and Airshare.
The upmarket Pilatus PC-24 resides in a class of its
own, straddling the boundary between light jets and
midsize aircraft. Its 18,300-pound max takeoff weight,
fuel efficiency, single-pilot certification, and runway
performance make it competitive. Its 500-cubic-foot
cabin volume, flat floor, standard autothrottles, and
400-knot block speed nudge it into the midsize niche.
The right engine has a special low idle rpm ground
mode that enables it to double as an APU, thereby pro-
viding heating, air conditioning, and electrical power
when the aircraft is parked. The PC-24 is the only jet
in either class to have a 4.2-foot high by 4.1-foot wide
aft cargo door. It can use unpaved runways, just like
the PC-12 NGX turboprop. That increases the number
of landing facilities it can use from 10,650 to 21,000.
Textron Aviation’s Citation Ascend, the fifth-gener-
ation Citation CE-560XL, is the last remaining truly
midsize class jet. Gone are Citation III/VI/VII, Hawker
800, Gulfstream G150, and Learjet 60. None had the
560XL’s blend of short-field performance, cabin com-
fort, operating economics, and low purchase price—
though it won’t reach the market until 2025.
Ascend could be the last member of the venerable
CE560XL family, a placeholder to buy time for Textron
Aviation to develop a clean-sheet replacement aircraft
with more speed, more range, and more cabin volume.
At nearly $17 million, Ascend’s price point puts it close
to the $18 million Embraer Praetor 500, a super-mid-
size aircraft with 70 percent more range, 40 to 70 knots
more speed, and half again more cabin volume.
The Praetor 500 can fly nonstop between almost
any two U.S. continental coastal cities at Mach 0.80
against winter winds. It has the lowest cabin altitude
in its class, 5,800 inside while cruising at 45,000 feet.
It boasts full-tanks, full-seats loading flexibility. It has
a wet galley, vacuum lavatory, and optional Viasat KA-
band SatCom connectivity. It’s the least expensive jet
in FLYING’s Buyers Guide to boast fly-by-wire flight
controls, a technology that used to be available only
on the most expensive jets from Bombardier, Das-
sault, and Gulfstream. Topping all that, it beats Cita-
tion Ascend’s short-field performance on equal length
missions. However, being much heavier than Citation
Ascend, Praetor 500 burns 20 percent to 25 percent
more fuel.
The super-midsize class remains one of the most
hotly contested sectors with offerings from Bombar-
dier, Gulfstream, and Textron, as well as Embraer. All
contenders feature two cabin sections, typically config-
ured with double-club seating or a single-club section
up front and a divan plus two facing chairs at the rear.
Bombardier Challenger 3500, the latest variant of the
Challenger 300 that entered service in 2003, sports a
cabin with nearly the same cross section as a Gulfst-
ream V, lower cabin altitudes to reduce fatigue, more
comfortable and stylish Nüage chairs and numerous
connectivity and convenience upgrades.
The Challenger 300 series has been the bestseller
in class for two decades because of its combination of
cabin comfort, performance, operating economics, and
dispatch reliability. With fat margins and fuel prob-
lems, it’s a cash cow for Bombardier. However, some
industry analysts maintain Challenger 3500 is due for
a major refresh to keep it competitive in the long term.
The Gulfstream G280 is the performance leader, ca-
pable of flying four passengers 3,700 nm at Mach 0.80,
and eight passengers 3,500 nm at the same speed. Its
cabin is slightly narrower than Challenger 3500, but
it’s longer, so the volume is virtually the same. The
G280 features a wing derived from the GV airfoil, al-
beit one with different twist and improved winglets.
Fuel efficiency rivals the best class, a result of the low
drag wing, fuel-efficient HTF7250G turbofans and
comparatively high cruising altitudes. For example,
it can climb directly to 43,000 feet on an ISA+10 de-
gree Celsius day. Demand for G280 is getting stron- airport security fence at Geneva International Airport
ger, with Gulfstream delivering 24 aircraft in 2022, (LSGG) in May and chained themselves to aircraft on
according to GAMA. display at the European Business Aviation Convention
Textron Aviation’s Citation Latitude is the firm’s & Exhibition, calling for a total ban on private jets, de-
bestselling jet, with 42 deliveries in 2022. Passengers crying them as “toxic objects” and carrying signs that
love this airplane, especially its roomy aft lavatory. read, “Warning: Private Jets Drown Our Hope.”
This low-risk derivative of the Model 680 Sovereign+ Another environmental group sprayed orange paint
offers the largest cabin cross section of any Citation on a Citation CJ1 at Sylt, Germany, in June, and a third
yet to enter production but one with impressive struc- splattered yellow paint over an Embraer Phenom 300E
tural efficiency. Its increase in empty weight is less at Ibiza, Spain, in July, unfurling a banner that read,
than 360 pounds compared to Sovereign+, while its “Your Luxury = Our Climate Crisis.”
cabin is 4 inches higher and 11 inches wider. It features Dassault fully understands the threats posed by envi-
the first flat floor in a Citation, a 9.66 psi pressuriza- ronmental protesters in Europe, warning that aviation
tion system that maintains cabin altitude below 6,000 bashing often translates into government regulatory
feet and a Garmin G5000 flight deck. Cabin width is policies. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (EHAM), for
about 5 inches narrower, and floor width is 7 inches instance, plans to ban private jets after 2025. Dassault
less than in the Praetor 500, thus its cross section is officials counter that all 2,100 Falcon Jets in service
the leanest in class. The Latitude’s typical block speed produce the same emissions as a single day of internet
is 400 knots, so it’s optimized for two- to three-hour video streaming.
trips even though it has a 6.5-hour endurance. To put business jet aviation emissions into perspec-
The Latitude’s fraternal twin, the Citation Lon- tive, it’s constructive to first look at global energy-re-
gitude, shares its cabin cross section, low cabin alti- lated carbon dioxide emissions. In 2022, the total was
tudes, and G5000 avionics package, but little else. The 36.8 billion metric tons, according to the Interna-
wing has a super-critical airfoil with 28.6 degrees of tional Energy Agency. IAE says aviation represents 2
sweep at one-quarter chord. It’s powered by Honeywell percent of total CO2 emissions, or 736 million metric
HTF7000 series turbofans, considered best in class by
Bombardier, Embraer, and Gulfstream. Normal cruise
speed is Mach 0.80, so mission block times are nearly
identical to those of Gulfstream G280.
The jet will fly four passengers 3,500 nm and eight
passengers 3,400 nm at that speed, enabling it to cruise
from New York to Paris, but not necessarily Paris to
New York against winter headwinds. On typical two-
to three-hour missions, the Longitude burns less fuel
than the Latitude and its takeoff and landing distances
are only slightly longer. Textron Aviation’s asking price
is nearly $30 million, the highest in the super-midsize
class, but that’s not dampening sales, again boosted by
the company’s renowned product support and the air-
plane’s unsurpassed low cabin noise levels. Textron
Aviation delivered 26 units in 2022.
Embraer’s Praetor 600 is the value leader in this
market niche. With a $21.5 million base price, it’s less
than $2 million more than the Citation Latitude, yet it
offers an extensive list of standard features. Along with
the Praetor 500, it’s the only super-mid to have fly-by-
wire flight controls. Its cabin cross is slightly smaller
than either the Bombardier Challenger 3500 or Gulfst-
ream G280 but larger than the Latitude or Longitude.
Similar to the Citation Latitude and Praetor 500, there
is no access to the unpressurized aft baggage compart-
ment in flight. With a highest-in-class, 16,000-plus-
pound fuel capacity, it can fly eight passengers 3,900
nm at long-range cruise. At Mach 0.80, range is close
to 3,700 nm.
While orders are strong at all the jet manufacturers
in FLYING’s Buyers Guide, storm clouds rapidly are
forming in Europe. Climate change activists cut the

54
tons. ICAO also quotes a 2 percent aviation share, based
upon research conducted by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. GAMA claims that business
aviation represents 2 percent of all aircraft emissions,
or 14.7 million metric tons.
The World Health Organization, in contrast, reports
the tobacco industry emits 84 million metric tons of
CO2 every year, more than 5.7 times as much as busi-
ness aviation. FLYING knows of no climate change ac-
tivists who are protesting cigarette smoking.
“There’s [an] angle of class warfare here,” says Ep-
stein, the Bank of America analyst.
Says another business aviation veteran: “Business
jet owners are targeted as fat cats that don’t have to go
through TSA. It’s not yet an existential threat in the
U.S. But what happens in Europe eventually comes
here.”
In light of growing public sentiment regarding the
carbon impact of private jets, the business aviation in-
dustry has committed to slashing total CO2 emissions
by 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2005. Transition-
ing from fossil fuel to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF or
bio jet-A) can reduce overall aircraft CO2 emissions by
80 percent, according to the International Air Trans-
port Association. Some SAF advocates claim up to 90
55
percent reduction, depending upon the bio feedstocks
and production processes.
The challenges to making the jump from fossil jet-A
to SAF are immense. Currently, the aviation industry
uses close to 100 billion gallons of jet-A annually but
only 14 million gallons is SAF, the majority of which
was purchased by business jet operators, according
to Timothy Obitts, CEO of Alder Fuels, a leading sus-
tainable fuels company in Virginia. One big hurdle to
scaling up SAF production is price. The wholesale cost
of biojet is up to three times as much as fossil fuel, so
FBOs are bound to charge a substantial premium for
it, squeezing the already tight budgets of many light
jet operators.
“Scaling up production of SAF is beyond the scope
of business aviation,” says Epstein. “It’s not happening
anytime soon. It’s going to take a massive investment
by government. And then business aviation can ride
on the coattails.”
However, the underpinnings of the business jet sec-
tor remain strong.
“People want to travel by air,” Epstein says. “The in-
dustry needs to be aware of climate change pressures
and manage them. Climate change activists aren’t the
ones buying business jets.” [
 T U RBO P RO P S

power up
Incredible capability and efficiency make the category shine.

BY JUL IE BOAT MA N
The turboprop market cruises along, still propelled by the surge in demand as the world
worked its way through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022—though numbers have drawn back slightly.
That’s a scenario that’s OK for most OEMs that have struggled with lingering supply chain pain points.

AIRCRAFT MAKE/MODEL MFR BASE PRICE ENGINE SEATS MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT FULL FUEL PAYLOAD
SINGLE-ENGINE TURBOPROP

Cessna Caravan $2,205,000 Pratt & Whitney PT6A-114A 10 - 14 8,000 lb. 1,081 lb.
Cessna Grand Caravan EX $2,485,000 Pratt & Whitney PT6A-140 10 - 14 8,807 lb. 1,286 lb.
Daher Kodiak 100 $2,963,765* Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34 up to 2 + 8 7,255 lb. 1,200 lb.
Daher Kodiak 900 $3,614,996* Pratt & Whitney PT6A-140A up to 10 8,000 lb. 1,546 lb.
Textron Aviation; Jim Barrett (opening spread, opposite)

Daher TBM 910 $4,497,837* Pratt & Whitney PT6A-66D 6 7,430 lb. 891 lb.
Daher TBM 960 $5,044,981* Pratt & Whitney PT6E-66XT 6 7,615 lb. 888 lb.
Epic E1000 GX $4,450,000* Pratt & Whitney PT6A-67A 6 8,000 lb. 1,100 lb.
Pilatus PC-12 NGX $6,028,000** Pratt & Whitney PT6E-67XP 10 + 1 10,450 lb. 988 lb.
Piper M500 $2,505,677 Pratt & Whitney PT6A-42A 6 5,092 lb. 559 lb.
Piper M600/SLS $3,536,535 Pratt & Whitney PT6A-42A 6 6,000 lb. 658 lb.
MULTIENGINE TURBOPROP

Beechcraft King Air 260
Beechcraft King Air 360
Cessna SkyCourier (freighter)
Cessna SkyCourier (passenger)
$7,780,000* 2 x P&W PT6A-52 9 12,500 lb. 3,760 lb. useful load
$9,255,000* 2 x P&W PT6A-60A 11 15,000 lb. 5,145 lb. useful load
$7,195,000* 2 x P&W PT6A-65SC 2 19,000 lb. 7,870 lb. useful load
$7,745,000 2 x P&W PT6A-65SC 21 19,000 lb. 6,345 lb. useful load
*MANUFACTURERS 2024 PRICING; **TYPICALLY EQUIPPED LIST PRICE; OTHERS VALIDATED BY CONKLIN & DEDECKER; SUBJECT TO CHANGE

58
FUEL BURN @ % POWER MAX SPEED MAX RANGE STALL SPEED TAKEOFF DISTANCE LANDING DISTANCE

58 gph 186 ktas 1,070 nm 61 kcas 2,055 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,625 ft. over 50-ft. obs
67 gph 185 ktas 912 nm 61 kcas 2,160 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,836 ft. over 50-ft. obs
48 gph @ 100% pwr 183 ktas 1,132 nm 60 kcas 1,015 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,400 ft. over 50-ft. obs
58 gph @ 100% pwr 210 ktas 1,129 nm 65 kcas 1,504 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,170 ft. over 50-ft. obs
61.4 gph @ 96% pwr 330 ktas 1,730 nm @ 252 ktas 65 kcas 2,380 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,430 ft. over 50-ft. obs
57 gph @ 84% pwr 330 ktas 1,730 nm @ 252 ktas 65 kcas 2,535 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,430 ft. over 50-ft. obs
49 gph @ 315 kts (FL340) 333 ktas 1,560 nm 68 kias 2,254 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,399 ft. over 50-ft. obs
69 gph 290 ktas 1,803 nm 67 kias 2,485 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,923 ft. over 50-ft. obs
35 gph 260 ktas 1,000 nm 79 kias 2,438 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,110 ft. over 50-ft. obs
40 gph 274 ktas 1,658 nm 71 kias 2,635 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,659 ft. over 50-ft. obs

124 gph 310 ktas 1,720 nm 80 kcas 2,111 ft. over 50-ft. obs 2,845 ft. over 50-ft obs
127 gph 312 ktas 1,806 nm 81 kcas 3,300 ft. takeoff field length 2,692 ft. over 50-ft obs
151.5 gph 210 ktas 940 nm 90 kcas 2,700 ft. over 50-ft. obs 3,010 ft.
151.5 gph 210 ktas 920 nm 90 kcas 3,660 ft. takeoff field length 3,010 ft.

59
 In 2022, a total of 505 single-engine turboprops
(SETs) were delivered, according to the General Avi-
ation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), besting
the 2021 and 2020 totals of 455 and 381, respectively.
That’s a healthy market that should continue, even as
pressure from the war in Ukraine continues in Europe
with aftershocks globally. On the multiengine side, a
total of 77 units went out the door in 2022, up from 72
in 2021, and 62 in 2020.

Single-Engine
FLYING Editors’ Choice Award winner for Aircraft in
2023, Daher's Kodiak 900, leads the group in combin-
ing utility with efficiency. Though FAA certification
was announced in summer 2022—and European Union
Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval in April—de-
liveries are just beginning in earnest as we go to press.
“The difficulty that our aviation industry [is] having
these days is to manage the supply chain,” said Nicolas
Chabbert, senior vice president of Daher’s aircraft divi-
sion, at EAA AirVenture this summer. “We are working
with great partners…but all the suppliers are needed to
complete an aircraft, and this is still a problem. So the
Kodiak 900 deliveries have just started, and we intend
to have eight deliveries of the Kodiak 900 this year, and
next year, it’s going to be 50 percent of the output, so
15 aircraft.”
Daher fielded not one but two new turboprops in
2022—and while the Kodiak 900 looks very different
on the outside from its predecessor (the 100 Series III),
the other, the TBM 960, shows its significant evolution
on the inside. The business end of it, the Pratt & Whit-
ney PT6E-66XT turboprop, is on full display, but the
brains, the Garmin GDL 60, only gained full signoff in
July, though it had been in place on the 960 since its de-
but in March last year. Daher also continues to expand
roles for its Kodiak 100 Series III—on tricycle gear or
floats—in multimission and public service roles.
The Piper M Class continues to perform well in the
market, according to Ron Gunnarson, vice president
of sales and marketing for Piper Aircraft. Gunnarson
noted strong continued sales of the M500 and M600/
SLS Halo introduced in late 2019 with Garmin’s Auto-
land on board—though he too called out the ongoing
supply chain issues. “We remain in a ‘pull’ market—
probably the strongest market that any of us have ever
seen, including those who have been here for 30 or
more years,” said Gunnarson at AirVenture. “It’s not
pulling as hard as it was a year ago, but it was unsus-
tainable. It was collapsing our traditional supply chain.
It was pulling on the resources of every OEM and every
major supplier.”
Still, the push to get aircraft into customers’ hands
continues. Epic Aircraft fielded the update to its cer-
Jim Barrett

tified SET, the E1000 GX, in fall 2021, and in 2022 it

delivered 16 of the fast turboprop to customers. So far
in the first quarter of 2023, it only shipped two units,
 hampered by those same supply chain constraints. Pi-
latus Aircraft also remains sold out into 2025 on its
longevous PC-12 NGX.
Sustainable aviation fuel plays a critical part in the
strength of the single-engine turboprop (SET) mar-
ket, as it identifies a near-term path toward net-zero
emissions for these airframes, though it is hardly
as easy to implement as it seems on paper. Nicholas
Kanellias, vice president of general aviation for Pratt
& Whitney Canada, said in a press conference at Air-
Venture: “We’re focusing on the future. We realize
that we need to be able to optimize the engine, but
[SAF] has to also be accessible for the customer base
that we’ve got.”
Greater operational efficiency is also made possible
by advancements in the turboprop engine that pow-
ers most SETs, the Pratt & Whitney PT6 series. Now
in its “E” versions—as in the PT6E-67XP on the PC-12
NGX—the powerplant is integrated with the airframe
through the engine and propeller electronic control
system, which streams data usable by both the pilot,
Pratt & Whitney, and the airframe OEM. “[Pilots] can
Jim Barrett
63
monitor whatever parameters they need to in order
to fly the aircraft, while we monitor over 100 parame-
ters for the engine,” said Kanellias. That greater data
transparency is likely to advance turboprops toward
reducing emissions as much as the net gain currently
seen in using 30 percent SAF from varying sources—
and in distribution worldwide that is uneven at best
until better standards have been set.
Multiengine
Textron Aviation advanced the multiengine turboprop
(MET) game on its own in 2021 and 2022 with the de-
buts of the next generation Beechcraft King Air 260 and
360/360ER to replace the 200 and 350, respectively, as
well as the short-haul mount, the Cessna SkyCourier.
The King Air 260 marked a total of 35 deliveries in
2022 to best slightly the 360/ER’s total of 34 units.
The SkyCourier saw six deliveries to launch customer
FedEx, beginning in May 2022—but it also notched its
first airline customer, Aerus, a new regional airline
in Mexico, which will operate the company’s Cessna
Grand Caravan EX as well. [
 P I STO N

performers
From singles to twins , there’s an airplane for everyone.

BY JU LIE BOATMA N
Though the dawn of electric aircraft rises in the east, we still rely upon piston-powered aircraft
to form the backbone of the general aviation fleet. They serve as our primary trainers, recreational weekend

flyers, and personal cross-country transport machines as they have since the Continental-powered Piper J3

Cub gained certification in 1938.

But as a sign of evolving times, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) aircraft shipment reports now collect electric aircraft

under the single-engine piston heading. And in 2022, GAMA recorded a total of 1,366 singles delivered—piston and electric, with 17 of those

the Pipistrel Velis Electro, under European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval as it awaits FAA validation. That’s better than

last year’s 1,261 and 2020’s 1,164. Just 158 twins left the hangar in 2022—but that’s up from 148 in 2021 and even with the 157 delivered in 2020.

AIRCRAFT MAKE/MODEL MFR BASE PRICE ENGINE SEATS MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT USEFUL LOAD
SINGLE-ENGINE PISTON

American Champion Scout $338,000 Lycoming O-360-C1G 2 2,150 lb. 810 lb.
American Champion Super Decathlon $338,000 Lycoming AEIO-360-H1B 2 1,950 lb. 645 lb.
Aviat Pitts S-2C $436,000 Lycoming AEIO-540 2 1,700 lb. 470 lb. (acro)
Aviat Husky A1-C-200 $430,950 Lycoming IO-360-A1D6 2 2,250 lb. 930 lb.
Beechcraft Bonanza G36 $999,000 Continental IO-550-B 6 3,805 lb. 1,213 lb.
Cessna Skyhawk $477,000* Lycoming IO-360-L2A 4 2,550 lb. 878 lb.
Cessna Skylane $603,000* Lycoming IO-540-AB1A5 4 3,100 lb. 1,110 lb.
Cessna Turbo Skylane $653,000* Lycoming TIO-540-AK1A 4 3,100 lb. 988 lb.
Cessna Turbo Stationair HD $835,000* Lycoming TIO-540-AJ1A 6 3,789 lb. 1,441 lb.
Cirrus SR20 $579,900* Lycoming IO-390-C3B6 4 3,150 lb. 1,028 lb.
Cirrus SR22 G6 $772,900* Continental TSIO-550-N 4 3,600 lb. 1,328 lb.
Cirrus SR22T G6 $887,900* Continental TSIO-550-K 4 3,600 lb. 1,246 lb.
CubCrafters XCub $396,000 Lycoming 0-360-C4P 2 2,300 lb. 1,084 lb.
CubCrafters NXCub $396,000 Lycoming CC393i 2 2,300 lb. 1,006 lb.
Diamond DA40 NG $534,000 Austro Engine AE300 (diesel) 4 2,888 lb. 950 lb.
Jim Payne (opening spread); Tecnam Aircraft

Diamond DA50 RG $995,000 Contrnental CD-300 (diesel) 5 4,407 lb. 1,232 lb.
Extra NG $580,000 Lycoming AEIO-580-B1A 2 2,094 lb./1,808 lb. (acro) 408 lb. (acro)
Gamebird GB1 $607,000 Lycoming AEIO-580-B1A 2 2,200 lb. 910 lb.
Maule MX-7-180B $380,000 Lycoming O-360-C1F 4 2,500 lb. 1,030 lb.
Piper Archer LX $481,000 Lycoming IO-360-B4A 4 2,550 lb. 870 lb.
Piper Archer DX $543,000 Continental CD-155 (diesel) 4 2,550 lb. 794 lb.
Piper M350 $1,410,000 Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A 6 4,340 lb. 1,212 lb.
Tecnam P2010 Gran Lusso $657,720* Continental CD-170 (diesel) 4 2,557 lb. 805 lb.
WACO YMF-5 $658,000* Jacobs R755 A2 2-3 2,950 lb. 628 lb.
*MANUFACTURERS 2024 PRICING; OTHERS VALIDATED BY CONKLIN & DEDECKER; SUBJECT TO CHANGE

66
FUEL BURN MAX SPEED MAX RANGE STALL SPEED TAKEOFF DISTANCE LANDING DISTANCE

6.9 to 10.3 gph 140 mph 1,079 nm @ 55% pwr 40 mph 697 ft. over 50-ft. obs 887 ft. over 50-ft. obs
9.6 gph 155 mph 458 nm @ 75% pwr 57 mph 1,061 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,126 ft. over 50-ft. obs
14 gph 169 knots 284 sm @ 75% pwr 56 kias 860 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,200 ft. over 50-ft. obs
7.6 gph @ 55% pwr 149 mph 828 nm @ 55% pwr 43 mph 265 ft. /6 secs 398 ft. ground roll
15.7 gph 174 ktas 920 nm 59 kcas 1,300 ft. ground roll 920 ft. ground roll
10.7 gph 124 ktas 640 nm 48 kcas 960 ft. ground roll 575 ft. ground roll
12.5 gph 145 ktas 915 nm 49 kcas 795 ft. ground roll 590 ft. ground roll
17 gph 165 ktas 971 nm 49 kcas 775 ft. ground roll 590 ft. ground roll
19.1 gph 161 ktas 703 nm 57 kcas 1,060 ft. ground roll 735 ft. ground roll
11.8 gph 155 ktas 709 nm 57 kcas 1,685 ft. ground roll 853 ft. ground roll
18 gph 183 ktas 1,169 nm 60 kcas (with flaps) 1,868 ft. over 50-ft. obs. 1,178 ft. ground roll
18 gph 213 ktas 1,021 nm 60 kcas (with flaps) 2,080 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,178 ft. ground roll
8.5 gph @ 60% pwr 156 mph 800 nm 43 mph 170 ft. ground roll 170 ft. ground roll
9.5 gph @ 60% pwr 156 mph 860 nm 43 mph 120 ft. ground roll 80 ft. ground roll
5.1 gph @ 60% pwr 154 ktas 984 nm @ 45% pwr 58 kcas (ldg config) 1,302 ft. ground roll 1,043 ft. ground roll
10.1 gph @ 60% pwr 172 ktas 750 nm 58 kcas (ldg config) 2,408 ft. over a 50-ft obs 2,224 ft. over a 50-ft obs
NA 202 ktas NA 50 kcas (acro) NA NA
16 gph 235 ktas 1,000 nm 60 kcas 980 ft. ground roll 1,480 ft. ground roll
9 gph 117 ktas 932 nm 35 kcas (ldg config) 700 ft. over 50-ft. obs 900 ft. over 50-ft. obs
9 gph 128 ktas 522 nm 45 kias 1,608 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,400 ft. over 50-ft. obs
6 gph 123 ktas 848 nm 45 kias 1,673 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,400 ft. over 50-ft. obs
20 gph 198 ktas NA 58 kias 2,090 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,968 ft. over 50-ft. obs
5.2 gph 140 ktas 961 nm 53 kcas 1,394 ft. ground roll 886 ft. ground roll
NA 120 kias 450 nm 51 kias 1,556 ft. over 50-ft.obs 1,650 ft. over 50-ft. obs

67
 Sporty Singles
Diamond’s certification of the DA50 RG under FAA ap-
proval announced at EAA AirVenture on July 25 takes
the lead on news for the sector. The DA50 RG, reviewed
in the June 2023/Issue 938 edition of FLYING, steps
into the spot once held by the Beechcraft Bonanza. It’s
a speedy, high-performing retract with an advanced
Continental engine design—this time the diesel CD-
300 rather than the IO-550. And it can haul a lot of
people and gear with relative comfort felt in the back
seats—though the total seats number five instead of
the Bo’s six. The modern powerplant can run on sus-
tainable aviation fuel, and it retains the inherent slow-
speed handling characteristics for which the Diamonds
stay famous.
That Bonanza remains in production—more than 75
years later—though Textron Aviation saw just three
of the G36 models delivered in 2022. Strength for the
Wichita, Kansas-based OEM remains with its Cessna
singles, the 172S Skyhawk, the 182T Skylane, and the
Turbo 206 HD Stationair. Textron Aviation leveraged
its position with flight school and aviation universities
with 151 deliveries of the 172 to complement the 48 182s
and 42 Stationairs.
Expect an enthusiastic response through the end of
2023 from Cirrus Aircraft to step up its bid to retain the
top spot in overall piston delivery numbers. The Duluth,
Minnesota-based OEM sent 100 SR20s, 159 SR22s, and
280 SR22Ts home with lucky pilots in 2022 for a total
of 539 singles—in addition to the 90 SF50 Vision Jets it
delivered. Cirrus has made incremental changes to the
SR series for this year, including a bespoke model run
celebrating its 9,000th SR delivery midyear. The real
news will come as it continues to test a 100LL replace-
ment in its big-bore Continentals. The OEM is working
with General Aviation Modifications Inc. (GAMI) on its
Tecnam Aircraft

G100UL fuel in pursuit of a solution for the fleet as it

faces the sunsetting of leaded fuel in the next several
years. Every OEM running 200 hp or higher engines in
its piston aircraft is in a similar position.

AIRCRAFT MAKE/MODEL MFR BASE PRICE ENGINE SEATS MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT USEFUL LOAD
MULTIENGINE PISTON

Beechcraft Baron G58 $1,599,000 2 x Continental IO-550-C 6 5,500 lb. 1,559 lb.
Diamond DA42-VI $979,000 2 x Austro AE300 (diesel) 4 4,407 lb. 1,298 lb.
Diamond DA62 $1,315,000 2 x Austro AE330 (diesel) 7 5,071 lb. 1,609 lb.
Piper Seminole $905,000 2 x Lycoming IO-360-B1G6 4 3,800 lb. 1,191 lb.
Tecnam P2006T $705,510* 2 x Rotax 912 S3 4 2,712 lb. 816 lb.
Tecnam P2012 Traveller $2,817,500* 2 x Lycoming TEO-540-C1A 2+9 8,113 lb. 3,117 lb.
*MANUFACTURERS 2024 PRICING; OTHERS VALIDATED BY CONKLIN & DEDECKER
FUEL BURN MAX SPEED MAX RANGE STALL SPEED TAKEOFF DISTANCE LANDING DISTANCE

35 gph 202 ktas 1,480 nm 73 kcas 1,373 ft. ground roll 1,440 ft. ground roll
10.3 gph @ 60% pwr 190 ktas 1,273 nm @ 50% pwr 61 kcas 1,391 ft. ground roll 1,220 ft. ground roll
11.8 gph @ 60% pwr 192 ktas 1,345 nm @ 50% pwr 70 kcas 1,575 ft. ground roll 1,447 ft. ground roll
18 gph 162 ktas 700 nm 55 kias 2,200 ft. over 50-ft. obs 1,490 ft. over 50-ft. obs
9 gph 145 ktas 650 nm 55 kcas 988 ft. ground roll 886 ft. ground roll
39 gph 194 ktas 950 nm 65 kcas 1,849 ft. ground roll 1,198 ft. ground roll
70
 Tecnam introduced its P2010 Gran Lusso single in
2022, aimed at the luxury four-seat market. It has res-
onated, as the company delivered 46 of the P2010 se-
ries last year. Other interesting piston singles run the
gamut of missions—from aerobatics with the Extra NG
and Gamebird GB1 (rumors of the GB2 remain unan-
swered) to backcountry utility with the CubCrafters
XCub and NXCub and just plain nostalgic fun with the
WACO YMF-5, profiled in our August 2023/Issue 940
of FLYING.
Piper also continues strong sales, particularly of its
PA-28 series and PA-44 Seminole into training fleets
worldwide. With 146 of the Pilot 100i and Archer III
sold in 2022, Piper has also recently signed deals for its
diesel version of the Archer, the DX, to flight schools in
India, where 100LL is scarce and expensive. Ron Gun-
narson, vice president of sales and marketing for Piper
Aircraft, said, “In 2022 we delivered 232 aircraft, 14
percent higher than what we did in 2021. That increase
was realized in both primary segments—the trainer
class and the M class.” Piper is “comfortable” deliver-
ing 180 to 200 training aircraft, Gunnarson said.
Cirrus Aircraft
Stepping Up to Twins
Also moving strongly into the training sector is Tec-
nam, which debuted its P-Mentor two-seat, single-en-
gine trainer at EA A AirVenture in Oshkosh this
summer—and which we reviewed in FLYING’s July
2023/Issue 939 edition. While it awaits certification
under the FAA, Tecnam continues to see success with
its two piston twins—the Rotax-powered P2006T for
flight schools and the Lycoming-powered P2012 Trav-
eller for regional operators.
Piper’s Seminole meets the P2006T in the flight
training world, with 21 of the light T-tail twins sent
to training programs last year. But big questions re-
main for the future of Piper’s Seneca V and the Beech-
craft G58 Baron—neither of which saw any deliveries
in 2022.
What’s certain, though, is that you will see more of
Diamond’s futuristic-looking twins, the DA42-IV and
the DA-62, whether you’re flying in North America
or Europe. The DA42, which some organizations use
for training, sold 45 units, while the more powerful
cross-country DA62 delivered 53 units worldwide. [
affordable
aviation
favorites
The light sport market sits poised for growth in the dawn of MOSAIC.

BY DA N JO H N SO N
Employing aviation effectively can bring people together and transport goods quickly,
integrating societies around the globe. These are noble and worthy pursuits.

Yet as demonstrated by broad participation in art, mu-
sic, or sport, individuals seek more than practical solu-
tions. Sometimes the activities that inspire us most are
those which free our minds and lift our spirits.
The aircraft in this portion of FLYING’s Buyers Guide
this year might be called “joy machines,” for their mis-
sion is to elevate you—physically and emotionally.
Welcome to recreational—and, yes, affordable—
aviation. To offer a taste of the 158 aircraft the FAA
has accepted as special (fully built) light sport aircraft
(LSA)—plus more than 100 kit-built models—I’ve di-
vided the subject aircraft into several categories, with
three outlined here. These aircraft are good represen-
tatives but between them account for just a small per-
centage of the models available.
Buyers enjoy many diverse choices, one of which
might be perfect for them. I encourage you to explore
the segment more fully at ByDanJohnson.com (to be-
come AffordableAviation.com), now a member of the
FLYING family.
 OUR FAVORI TE LSA
Light sport aircraft have been part of the aviation firma-
ment for almost 20 years, and over that time, some mod-
els established themselves even as newcomers regularly
arrive. The way the FAA accepts (not “certifies”) these
airplanes allows rapid improvement, which has stim-
ulated surprisingly fast progress. What will happen as
the Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certifica-
tion’s (MOSAIC) recent rulemaking comes to conclusion
looks like it will only serve to expand upon the grand va-
riety and capability we witness on the market—such as
expanding the envelope of the Bristell SLSA featured in
our opening spread, and in the April 2023/Issue 936 edi-
tion of FLYING.
The Evektor Harmony is a next-generation model fol-
lowing its SportStar, which will forever hold the title of
the first special LSA accepted by the FAA in April 2005
only weeks after the new sport pilot/light sport aircraft
regulation was released. Flight Design’s CT was accepted
the same day.
Being first often conveys some advantage, but in an
industry where new ideas often emerge, a successful
producer cannot long rest on past achievements. Based
in an aviation-rich area of the Czech Republic, Evektor
steadily upgraded its SportStar through a series of al-
terations. Later, the company introduced the Harmony
with added sophistication.
The Harmony uses a more advanced compound
wing—the leading edge does not form a straight line—
to bring performance up to the top of the category (re-
stricted by present regulation, which may change with
MOSAIC). Pilots who fly the Harmony say it feels like a
legacy GA airplane.
S E APLANE LSAS
Seaplanes quickly earn a special place in some aviators’
hearts because of their unique ability to land on water
and for the versatility that amphibious gear affords. The
FAA recognized this interest and allowed 110 pounds
more gross weight for qualifying seaplanes and also per-
mitted amphibious gear. With a water-going craft, you
have vastly more places to make a landing, whether for
a pleasant visit or an emergency.
From its first announcement, pilots could see ICON’s
A5 LSA seaplane was something distinctive. Its hull and
fuselage blended form and function to retract gear in-
visibly while providing stability on the water. When its
wings were electrically folded, jaws dropped; many en-
visioned how to launch A5 at their local marina.
The California developer went on to a long develop-
ment period where every detail was sussed out to an
75
The Jabiru J-230D, hailing from Australia, is the re-
sult of years of development, beginning long before light
sport aircraft came along. When FAA’s rule hit in 2004,
the Down Under designer and manufacturer was quick
to adapt its kit products to the new market.
The J-230D resembles the company’s J-400, a four-
seater. That many seats aren’t permitted on LSA, so out
they came, leaving an aft interior bigger than a Cessna
150. A third door sized for people brings the easiest lug-
gage area loading among LSA—you can easily take your
pet along. Jabiru is a rare airframe manufacturer that
also makes its own engine. When you hear the word
“Jabiru” (a large bird), you need to think airplane and
powerplant, though the engines are also used on other
airframes. A J-230D with the 6-cylinder Jabiru 3300 can
readily hit the top speed among LSA.
The 2020 FLYING Editors’ Choice Award-winning
Texas Aircraft Colt relies on the great success of a prede-
cessor Brazilian design, but the Colt is all American. One
of the newer aircraft to the LSA fleet in the U.S., develop-
ers had the advantage of seeing what pilots were buying…
and what they were requesting.
With its conventional yoke control, the Colt breaks a
familiar mold in LSA, an overwhelming majority of which
use joysticks in various forms. A refined aircraft, the Colt
is beautifully appointed inside and out, attracting pilots
seeking a legacy GA airplane look in a ground-up-new de-
sign that can be operated by a sport or higher-certificated
pilot exercising the no-medical privileges of LSA.
Built in Hondo, Texas, with local support, the Colt joins
the best of an experienced Brazilian aircraft designer
with American airplane-building capability in the U.S.
intricate degree. The resultant aircraft that emerged
addressed FAA’s current counsel to industry: “Make
these aircraft easy to fly, operate, and maintain.” Three
checks for ICON engineers and company leadership.
They forged ahead while maintaining the smooth lines
of early prototypes.
By 2022, ICON rose to be one of the leading suppli-
Leonardo Correa Luna (previous page)
ers in the LSA industry, and those of us lucky enough to
have operated its well-located controls quickly acquired
large smiles. A5 is simple and responsive, stall resistant,
and stable. The modern sports car cabin is comfortable
and spacious. Amphibious gear makes the A5 versatile
and puts America’s many waterways on the list of avail-
able landing areas.
Vickers Aircraft closely observed ICON after it made
a big splash with the A5. Vickers, based in New Zea-
land, saw an opportunity to achieve even more with its
Wave. And engineers took a different approach to cre-
ating it. Using modern CAD methods and software sim-
ilar to Boeing or Lockheed Martin, Vickers worked for
years before unveiling a product but, when it did, it flew
“right out of the box.” The company remains in testing
as it works toward FAA acceptance but believes it can
swiftly move to manufacturing because of the detailed
preparation work. Indeed, elements are already being
produced. The Wave first tempted buyers with prices
substantially below ICON’s eye-watering $394,000, al-
though continued improvements and the latest engine
from Rotax have pushed up its costs. All told, the Wave
is an intriguing amphibian loaded with features and
boasting a large interior complete with sliding doors.
Scoda Aeronautica’s Super Petrel started its life in
France. It was much different before the team at Edra,
now Scoda Aeronautica, took over in Brazil. Here’s an-
other seaplane entry from the South American nation
that is very big in aviation. The Super Petrel sets itself
apart from all others with its biwing construction. You
may not think that’s logical in the modern world, but
the Super Petrel is a highly efficient aircraft. Plenty of
wing area help it leave the water faster. The shorter the
water run, the less strain on an airframe. LSA seaplanes
are masterful at this task, jumping off the water in a few
seconds. The higher power-to-weight ratio helps, but
Scoda wanted to go even further.
Scoda’s XP designation for the Super Petrel means ex-
tra performance, but you also get more airplane. The
airframe was extended by 10 inches, bringing with it a
bounty of benefits, including more luggage area. With
Rotax’s 141 hp 915iS engine atop the center of gravity,
Super Petrel leaps out of the water with great energy.

NI CHE BUYS
The Airplane Factory’s Sling HW, or High Wing, is an
all-new design clearly aimed at FAA’s coming MOSAIC
regulation. A quick glance at the specifications below
illustrates that Sling HW is well outside the current
regulation for light sport aircraft. That’s OK for now.
It can start with a kit or import a few aircraft in the
experimental/exhibition category.
Numbers are bigger than for a present-day LSA, and
that’s great if you seek extra capability. Be prepared
to pay for it. Most MOSAIC-targeted LSA unveiled to
date are often well into the $200,000s. Several exceed
$300,000. Still, that’s much less than a comparable leg-
acy GA aircraft, and Sling HW is big, comfortable, and
well equipped. A sleek composite exterior helps it out-
perform comparable models.
These MOSAIC light sport aircraft (MLSA) are go-
ing to greatly expand the LSA range, and Sling producer
TAF has long been an innovator.
It is also supremely confident in its designs and loves
to demonstrate that by literally flying a new design all
the way around the world. In fact, it has done so sev-
eral times.

AIRCRAFT MAKE/MODEL MFG BASE PRICE

MFR ENGINE SEATS MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT FULL FUEL PAYLOAD
LIGHT SPORT

Evektor Harmony $145,000 Rotax 912ULS (912iS, 914) 2 1,320 lb. 618 lb.
Jabiru J-230D (or Exp kit) $179,900 Jabiru 3300 6-cyl, 120 hp 2 (Exp 4) 1,320 lb. (1,675 Exp) 470 lb.(825 Exp)
Texas Aircraft Colt $169.50 Rotax 912ULS (912iS) 2 1,320 lb. 469 lb.
Sling HW (kit; MSLA?) $182,000 w/eng Rotax 916iS, 160 hp 4 2,315 lb. 981 lb.
BRM Aero Bristell $179,000 Rotax 912 (to 915iS) 2 1,320 lb. 550 lb.
MOSAIC LIGHT SPORT

Lockwood AirCam (kit; MLSA?) $80,165 (no eng) 2 x Rotax 912iS (ULS, 914T) 3 1,900 lb. (2,000, floats) 740 lb.
Van’s RV-12iS(SLSA, ELSA, kit) $156,000 Rotax 912iS Sport 2 1,320 lb. 505 - 540 lb.
LIGHT SPORT SEAPLANES

Vickers Wave (wt exempt) N/A Rotax 915iS (916iS) 2 1,830 lb. 750 lb.
ICON A5 (wt exempt) $394,000 Rotax 9112iS 2 1,510 lb. 430 lb.
Scoda Super Petrel XP $289,000 Rotax 915iS, 141 hp 2 1,430 lb. 550 lb.

76
 The two-seat Texas Aircraft Colt makes for a fine trainer—and it won a FLYING Editors’ Choice Award in 2020.

KI T-BUI LT
Building your own aircraft involves much more than
just saving money—just ask the experts at Van's Air-
craft, who offer both SLSA and kit versions of the RV-12.
For most, it is a learning experience, a use of craftsman-
ship, or simply an absorbing hobby. When you’re done,
you will know it in a way few pilots know their aircraft.
You can also put in it precisely what you want.
Lockwood Aircraft’s AirCam is no light sport air-
craft, but it might qualify as a MLSA. The AirCam has
been such a hit that 200 have been built as kits. It looks
somewhat unorthodox with its twin aft-mounted Rotax
engines on a half-open-cockpit design, but you need to
know why it looks this way.
The AirCam was custom designed and built for one
job—taking National Geographic-grade cover story
photos of Namibian jungles and African wildlife. The
country’s terrain is utterly unforgiving. Clearings are
few and small. The photographer, seated up front for
photo missions, needs huge visibility and no obstruc-
tions. Plus, they wish to fly at the speed of nature, that
is slowly. The AirCam accomplishes all this like it was
designed for it—because it was. [

FUEL BURN @ % POWER MAX SPEED MAX RANGE STALL SPEED TAKEOFF DISTANCE LANDING DISTANCE

3.5 gph @ 75% 120 ktas 894 nm /30 min 37 ktas clean 620 ft over 50-ft obst 590 ft over 50-ft obst
5.5 @ 75% 120 ktas 660 nm @ 75% 47 kias clean 1,286 ft over 50-ft obst 1,929 ft over 50-ft obst
5 gph @ 75% 116 ktas 831 nm @ 75% 39 kias 1,185 ft over 50-ft obst 1,044 ft over 50-ft obst
8.4 gph @ 88% 155 kias 820 nm @ cruise 58 kias clean 1,600 ft over 50-ft obst 590 ft over 50-ft obst
4.5 gph @ 65% 155 kias 725 nm @ 75% 42 ktas clean 750 ft (450) over 50-ft obst 385 ft over 50-ft obst

5.5 gph 2x w 912iS ULS) 95 kias/ktas 300 nm @ 74 kts 35 kts flaps 500 ft over 50-ft obst 700 ft over 50-ft obst
Courtesy of Texas Aircraft

3.7 to 4.6 gph 125 ktas 574 nm @ 5000 rpm 41 kias 1,091 ft over 50-ft obst 1,449 ft over 50-ft obst

4.7 gph @ 90% 135 ktas 1,100 nm @ 75% 44 kias 420 ft over 50-ft obst 500 ft over 50-ft obst
4 gph 120 kias 428 nm 39 kias 1,460 ft (1,350 water) 1,750 ft (2,110 water)
6 gph (eco) 120 kias 500 nm (eco) 37 kias 700 ft over 50-ft obst 800 ft over 50-ft obst

77

FINANCING:
WHAT ARE YOUR
OPTIONS?
We break o pe n m a r k et pl a ce myt h s w i t h
F LY IN G Fi na nc ia l G r o u p .
B Y F LYI N G STAF F
WHILE AN APPROACH to minimums in a light twin
may leave you with your hands full, most pilots rec-
ognize the path to proficiency and success in this sce-
nario. What may not be as clear—if you don’t come
from a finance background—is how to turn the dream
of owning an airplane into reality.
As FLYING Media Group expands its portfolio of
services to pilots, it recently acquired Sky Allies Cap-
ital, a nimble player in the aviation finance market, to
help our readers find the path to aircraft ownership.
Now, as FLYING Financial Group (FFG), the team
we’re bringing on board will assist pilots in transi-
iStock
78
tioning to owners, whether the deal is for a light sport
airplane or a super-midsize jet.
We sat down with Josh Colton, founder of Sky Al-
lies and now director of FFG, to break through a few
barriers pilots may perceive in getting started. Colton
comes from a background in marketing and finance,
including time at Cessna Aircraft Co.—now Textron
Aviation—in a variety of roles in marketing strategy
and channel development. Colton holds a Master of
Business Administration degree and an airline trans-
port pilot certificate with type ratings in the HondaJet
and Citation 525 series.
“First, it’s important to understand that the aircraft
you pursue drives to a large extent the kind of financ-
ing that will be available,” says Colton. “Whether it’s a
light piston single or a warbird or a jet, they all involve
different types of financing. For experimental aircraft,
you are typically looking at a home equity loan or line
of credit, or cash, whereas with a jet, a bank loan is
most often the vehicle.”
That’s why having an adviser specializing in aircraft
financing can help you to navigate the most likely path
to securing the funds for the transaction.
“If you go to your own credit union or bank, most
banks don’t understand aviation,” says Colton. “Plus,
you may need to hire an attorney to do documentation
on the deal and/or ownership structure, hire an ap-
praiser, and help with insurance and closing. If you’re
working with a finance broker, they’re going to do a soft
pull of your credit, tax returns, etc., and provide you
with a path. It’s easier than going it alone, as they can
advise the best match.”
And what’s the cost of going through a financial bro-
ker? “If we do our job right, it won’t cost any more than
going direct to a bank—sometimes it does. Sometimes
it costs less,” says Colton.
Financing Options
Aside from cash buyers, there are typically two paths
that private owners take and another option for those
pursuing assets for commercial operations. Bank loan
terms are generally 10 to 20 years, depending on the
age of the aircraft and total time on the engine and air-
frame. Or a buyer could draw cash from a home equity
loan. For these loans, Colton says, you’ll need to put 15
to 20 percent down on the personal loan—usually 20
percent—with interest rates floating around 7 to 8 per-
cent at press time.
Another path would be aircraft leasing—and it’s not
for private operators, normally, according to Colton—
but if you’re looking at conducting Part 135 operations
or running a flight school under Part 141, you might
pursue this direction. For example, Colton has had
another business that leases a Cessna 172 to a school.
“It has to be for a business’ essential purpose,” he
says, “so if you’re flying Cessna Caravan for cargo ops,
that makes sense, but if you buy one to get to your lake
house and you want to lease it, that probably won’t
work.”
The advantage to a leasing arrangement is that you
may be able to get 100 percent financing for the deal,
putting no money down as part of the transaction. The
downside? There’s often a 10, 12, or 14 percent rate on
that, according to Colton.
Taking Care of the Customer
Colton credits one of his mentors at Cessna, retired
senior vice president of sales and marketing Roger
Whyte, as inspiration for how he approaches financial
brokerage.
“Whyte’s credo was always to treat your customers
well, so they would come back,” he says.
In order to ensure that, the idea is to keep the time-
frame no longer through a broker than the process
would be through a bank.
“It’s like hiring a real estate agent—if they are a pro,
they save you time and money,” Colton says.
Brokers can also offer creative ways to access capi-
tal, including using cars, rental homes, or other assets
to get to the desired line of credit. If someone has been
declined by their bank, “we can go do creative deals as
well,” mitigating the effects of having a B- or C-grade
credit—as opposed to the A or A-1 credit most financial
institutions look for in conventional loans. Pilots are
typically a good risk.
“There are very few losses in aircraft finance, if the
banks do their market research,” says Colton.
Finally, just like on the flight deck, having a proce-
dure mapped out ensures preparation and that no steps
are missed.
“We have a checklist to follow with those seeking
financing for an aircraft,” he says. “We consider the
prebuy [inspection], damage history, getting an air-
plane with a mid-time or less engine if it’s going to be
financed, or structure the loan that way. If it’s a jet,
finding an airplane that’s on an engine program of some
kind…it dramatically cuts into the universe of lenders
available if the jet is not on a program, so be prepared
for the process to take longer and cost more.”
All of the information Sky Allies has collected over
the years “flows back into the type of loans that we do,”
says Colton. “An asset—the airplane—on the other side
could be 60 years old or brand new, an SR22, or a war-
bird. We have that all in our database to match people
with the right lender and loan structure. As a result, we
usually work with our top 10 lenders out of a large pool,
and that’s what we bring to the table along with indus-
try specialization.” [
 PREDICTABLE
UNPREDICTABILITY
T h e i ns u ra n ce m a r ket ha s sta bil i zed—s o m e w ha t .

B Y DAVID HA MP SON

ALL THIS TALK about a “new normal” of predictable

unpredictability at first seemed like a post-pandemic
cliché to me, but I’m beginning to think there’s more to
it. Who would have thought we’d see inflation reaching
high single digits, mortgage rates exceeding 7 percent
amid an economy headed to an elusive “soft landing,”
regional airline first officers earning more than fast-
food wages, or me flying an instrument approach to
near minimums through smelly wildfire smoke to get
into Teterboro, New Jersey?
The aviation insurance market hasn’t proven to
be any more predictable than the world at large. One
would expect rates to stabilize after five years of in-
creases, but they are still going up. Similarly, un-
derwriting criteria haven’t loosened and are still
tightening in certain areas, such as war risk. This vol-
atility is driven by largely unforeseen domestic and
global factors. On a domestic level, inflation of parts
and labor and stubborn supply chain issues continue to
increase costs to settle hull claims. Also, attorney rates
and litigation costs are rising, so insurers pay more
even if they prevail in successful defense of their in-
sureds. Globally, the market is facing billions of dollars
of unexpected claims because of the Russia-Ukraine
conflict, followed closely by the $3 billion Boeing 737
Max claims saga. And to add insult to the injury of un-
predictable outcomes, aircraft that were destroyed in
the Sudanese conflict earlier this year could result in to three years, and we’ll address that. But first let me
another $250 million to $300 million of losses. paint a picture of where we are today.
It’s worth reiterating that aviation premiums are col-
lectively small on both a national and global scale, and Piston Aircraft
aviation breaks the “law of large numbers,” a cardinal The good news is insurance rates for pleasure and non-
rule in actuarial science that predicts outcomes with commercial, business-use piston aircraft—being fur-
reasonable accuracy if there are enough similar expo- ther removed from international shock losses—have
sures to consider. At the risk of oversimplifying a com- largely stabilized, and we are seeing increases in line
plex underwriting process, we can demonstrate this with inflation. This is particularly the case for basic
concept with a simple coin-flip exercise. trainers and common models with many serial num-
We can predict the outcome of a standard coin flip bers in service. Factors that continue to pose an under-
will result in heads 50 percent of the time. Try flipping writing challenge include low-time pilots in high hull
a coin 10 times and see if you get five heads. You prob- value and/or retractable gear aircraft, make/models
ably won’t. Now try flipping a coin 100 times or even with limited parts availability, experimental aircraft,
500 times if you’re ambitious. I’m sure it will be much and older multiengine pistons.
closer to a 50 percent outcome. With so few similar ex- While pilots over 70 years of age will continue to face
posures in aviation insurance, we are the 10-coin-flip challenges finding options for new aircraft purchases,
gamble of the insurance world, whereas on a relative we find most underwriters willing to renew coverage
basis boat insurance would be about 900 coin flips and for pilots who have demonstrated loyalty to the same
auto insurance would be 10,000 coin flips. insurer over many years, though liability limits may be
You might be wondering what this all means for lowered, and operations under BasicMed might be off
iStock

where aviation insurance is headed in the next two the table. More underwriters are now willing to insure

80
new aircraft purchases for pilots as old as 79 in basic,
fixed-gear models such as a Piper PA-28, Cessna 172, or
even a Cessna 182, especially if the pilots are high time
and instrument rated.
Commercial operators flying piston aircraft, such as
flight schools and charter companies, will likely face
higher increases than non-commercial operators, but
still lower than what we saw in 2020 through 2022, un-
less there has been notable claims activity. Unfortu-
nately, commercial piston operators may still find few
competitive options at renewal time because these ac-
counts are manually rated. Insurers have not been im-
mune to staff shortages that plague many industries,
and underwriters need to prioritize what they work on
because they often don’t have time to get through ev-
ery submission on their desk. If you are unhappy with
your incumbent insurer for some reason other than
price and want to make a change, it helps if your broker
communicates that sentiment to their underwriters
because they are more likely to quote when they know
there is a realistic chance to win an account.
Another positive sign we are seeing is that several
new insurers are entering the piston/light aircraft
market. It is too early to tell how competitive these
new insurers will be and to what extent they will dis-
rupt the market status quo, but an expansion of insur-
ers is usually a sign of a hard insurance market about
to turn the corner.
Turbine: Owner Flown
The owner-flown turbine segment, which includes tur-
boprops and jets, continues to be a tough nut to crack.
Because rates were so depressed for so long, and many
insurers suffered high-dollar losses as a result of large
hull values and liability limits, it’s taking longer for this
sector to recover.
Increases here will generally be higher than inflation
and may come with decreased liability limits, fewer an-
cillary coverages, and higher hull deductibles. But most
insurers are still willing to renew existing accounts un-
til pilots reach their mid-70s.
Pilots new to the turbine market need to be strategic
about their transition plans. It helps to find an airplane
that is as similar as possible to the one you’ve been fly-
ing. For example, a Cirrus SR22 to a SF50 Vision Jet,
or a Piper Malibu to a Piper Meridian are the sort of
transitions that are viewed favorably by underwriters
if a pilot is instrument rated with at least 1,000 hours
total time.
With regard to training, I implore turbine transition
pilots not to request “in-aircraft” initial or recurrent
training for the first three years. I’ve already heard
every possible justification for it and so have your un-
derwriters. Nothing is going to change the fact that
simulator training is the gold standard to insurers be-
cause of its thoroughness and standardization, and re-
questing a waiver early on in your turbine career may
negatively bias how underwriters perceive your atten-
81
tion to risk management, safety, and training. High-
time turbine pilots with substantial make/model time
who are under 70 may be able to obtain approval for
in-aircraft recurrent training if not annually, then at
least in alternating years.
On the positive front, we can usually obtain an in-
surance solution for even the lowest time turbine tran-
sition pilots if they’re prepared to pay, able to accept
basic liability limits, and willing to allow a mentor
CFI to babysit them from the right seat for 50- to 100-
plus hours. For example, we recently quoted a student
pilot in a Cessna Caravan for a six-figure insurance
premium and have written Cirrus Vision Jets for sub-
400-hour pilots at around a $75,000 annual premium.
Turbine: Professionally Flown
Corporate or commercially operated turboprops and
jets fall into a different and more favorable rating tier
than owner-flown risks. Accounts with favorable loss
history are generally seeing increases at least in line
with inflation but less than owner-flown turbine ac-
counts. War hull and liability coverages have doubled
in many cases because of the aforementioned global
conflicts, but these coverages are fortunately a small
component of the total premium for domestic aircraft
without significant international exposure.
Many commercial operators have seen flight activ-
ity pick up in recent years. While premiums aren’t nor-
mally rated or audited for annual hourly utilization,
claims activity in the form of weather events, bird
strikes, and hangar rash usually increase with utiliza-
tion. We’re seeing the effects of this reflected in higher
loss ratios and rate increases greater than average for
commercial operators who are flying more.
There remains competition for and favorable treat-
ment of “best-in-class” risks in the professionally
flown turbine world. You can separate yourself from
the rest by living and breathing a culture of risk man-
agement, pilot proficiency, and safety that goes far be-
yond an SMS program. Top accounts in this segment
will proactively seek input from their insurer’s safety
and loss control departments for improvement and
select one or several underwriters to partner with to
achieve a long-term, mutually profitable relationship
for both insurer and insured.
Future Market
Now to predict the unpredictable, let’s circle back to my
earlier exercise and flip another coin. I call heads, the
market gets better, and tails the market gets worse. I
can tell you with nearly 100 percent certainty that one
of these two outcomes will be correct and also that
we’ll be in for an interesting and unforeseen ride along
the way. [
DAVID HAMPSON is president of Schrager Hampson Aviation
Insurance Group and an instrument-rated commercial pilot.
He can be reached at: david@planeinsurance.com.
 TEST-FLYING
SPORTY'S
PJ2+ COM
B ac ku p an d p r i m a r y co m m u ni ca ti o ns ?
Yo u’ re co v ered .

B Y MEG G OD LEWS KI

A HANDHELD COM RADIO is one of those tools

every pilot should have in their flight kit. If you are
a CFI, it’s a must for monitoring first solos from the
ramp. For everyone else, it is a backup for communi-
cations should the radio stack in the airplane go Tango
Uniform during the flight. And in some cases, when
you are flying an aircraft that lacks an engine-pow-
ered electrical system, the battery-powered radio is
all you have—and you had better have a specialized
jack to plug your headset into, or else you’re going to
be doing the awkward “push-the-boom-mic-out-of-
the-way-to-talk” routine.
Recently, FLYING had the opportunity to test the
PJ2+ com radio from Sporty’s Pilot Shop. It’s the fol-
low-on to the original PJ2 that won FLYING’s Editors’
Choice Award in 2020. The PJ2+ made points with me
right off the bat because it has a direct plug-in for the
headset. You don’t need a specialized adapter, which
very often has gone missing. The direct plug-in allows
you to communicate effectively through the boom mic. break down, it is often the end of the radio. Because I
lost my Sporty’s SP-400 nav/com radio to hostile cor-
Physical Parameters rosion that could not be removed with a treatment of
The body of the PJ2+ measures 6 inches long and 2 distilled vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice, I paid
inches wide. The antenna measures approximately 7 extra attention to this. I recommend designating a spe-
inches. That’s enough to communicate within the air- cific pouch in your flight bag to hold the batteries—and
port traffic pattern and on the ramp, but if you want to only the batteries—when not in use. Make reinstalling
use the PJ2+ as a primary radio in aircraft, you’ll need them and removing them checklist items.
an external antenna. Bonus note: You do not need tools to replace the
The PJ2+ weighs 1.12 pounds, which makes it easy batteries on the PJ2+. The battery cover is removed
to carry. For comparison, we placed it next to the Icom by sliding it up. The unit takes six 1.5 volt AA alkaline
radio I have carried for years. The PJ2+ is larger, so batteries. There is a diagram on the cover to show you
there will be more space disruption in the gear bag. where to put the positive (+) and negative (-) terminal
You have options when it comes to a power source markings inside the case.
for the PJ2+. You can use six readily accessible AA bat-
teries to power the device or make use of the USB-C Features from the Top Down
port if your aircraft is so equipped. Sporty’s opted for The radio accepts standard twin-plug aviation head-
the AA batteries because they are easy to find and rel- set jacks. When the jacks are not in use, they are cov-
atively inexpensive. ered with a rubber gasket. A similar gasket protects
You will appreciate this if you have ever had a hand- the USB-C power jack on the side of the device. Both
held radio that required a specialized battery, charging rubber coverings are attached to the body of the radio
station, or cord, and one of them went missing. Re- on one end, so they will stay with the radio and not
chargeable batteries are not recommended. disappear into the bowels of your flight bag. In addi-
If you use AA batteries, Sporty’s advises remov- tion to standard aviation headsets jacks, the PJ2+ also
Sporty’s

ing them from the unit when it is not in use for an features a 3.5 millimeter jack to accommodate wired
extended period of time because when the batteries earbuds or a computer headset.

82
 The antenna attaches via a BNC connector on top
of the device. The BNC is standard for use on aircraft
radios, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to attach the de-
vice to an existing aircraft radio antenna through a
coaxial cable. The on/off and volume knob is on top of
the unit. The on/off function has the feel and sound of
a “click,” so you know when the radio is on even if you
cannot see the screen.
The LCD screen measures 1.5 inches by 1.63 inches,
which makes it one of the larger handheld com screens
on the market. There is a lot of room for data presen-
tation, including a low-battery indicator and several
lines of frequencies. According to Sporty’s, the PJ2+
is capable of 760 com frequencies from 118.000 mega-
hertz to 136.975 MHz. Both the data screen and key-
pad are auto-lit. The screen boasts enough room for 20
visual memory channels.
The buttons on the keypad are larger than most
found on handheld coms—and more spread out. There
is a designated 121.5 function on the “2” button, and
memory clear is found on “0.” Function keys UP and
DOWN—along with RCL for “recall,” MEM for “mem-
ory,” CLR for “clear,” and WX for “weather”—allow the
user to access the automated weather frequencies for
the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). You can also scan the entire frequency range.
On the left side of the device you find the flip/flop
button—identifiable with the double-sided arrow—that
allows you to move back and forth between the current
and last frequency. The next button is the push-to-talk
(PTT), shaped like a holding pattern on an instrument
approach plate.
The last button has a stylized light bulb on it, as it
is used to activate the backlighting for the screen and
keypad. When used in combination with the “clear”
key, it can enable and/or disable the auto-light feature
to put it into night mode.
To get the most out of this radio, you will want to
read the manual first. I know that is anathema to pi-
lots that pride themselves on their ability to gronk
their way through things, but to really get the most
out of the device, spend a few minutes learning about
its functions.
Test Flight
Our test began at a nontowered airport on a busy Sun-
day. We started off by engaging the search mode. When
scanning for a frequency, when a broadcast signal is
found, the word “search” flashes, and the unit stops
on that frequency. If the broadcasting signal is cut off
for more than two seconds, the search feature resumes
until it picks up another signal in the 118.000 MHz to
136.975 MHz band. Pressing the “clear” key ends the
search. You can reverse the search direction by press-
ing and holding the “UP” or “DOWN” key (whichever
is appropriate) for one second.
You can put frequencies into memory by using ei-
ther the search mode or adding them manually. Once
83
they are in, they can be saved by pressing the “mem-
ory” key. Pull up the frequency by pressing the “recall”
key and cycling through the channel numbers as they
appear on the screen.
The 121.5 emergency key on the “2” gave us pause
until we noted that you have to hold down the key for
two to three seconds for the PJ2+ to automatically go
to 121.5.
The search for the NOAA weather frequencies was
easy and an excellent supplemental tool for our weather
briefings. This was followed by a search for local fre-
quencies. We listened to the weather and then accessed
the CTAF. A radio check came back loud and clear.
We typed in the CTAF and a few ATIS and tower fre-
quencies and saved them for use. The frequencies were
visible in direct sunlight. To transmit, press the PTT
button at any time while tuned to a com frequency to
broadcast over the one you’ve selected. You know you
are transmitting because the screen displays a “TX”
beneath the frequency. When using the headset with
the unit, the PJ2+ com’s internal microphone will be
deactivated and the microphone on the headset may
be activated by either pressing the PJ2+’s PTT or an
inline remote PTT.
We flew three aircraft for the test: two Cessna 172s
and a Cessna 182. On the first flight, we could hear Se-
attle Approach, but it could not hear us, nor did we ex-
pect it as the PJ2+ com transmitter power, as tested,
is a relatively low 1.5 watts—normal for handhelds. We
could hear Seattle, and therefore knew when to expect
someone near us. It was a different story when we got
closer to the towered and nontowered airports. Our
transmissions were received loud and clear.
According to Sporty’s, the unit’s maximum trans-
mit power is 6 watts, which is the maximum allowed
by the Federal Communications Commission for por-
table radios. As noted by Sporty’s, “the real measure is
how much a radio typically puts out in day-to-day use.
We’ve tested the PJ2+ and the L6 and found they rou-
tinely put out 1.5 to 1.8 watts, which is a lot more than
the 1.2 to 1.3 watts we see on other radios. More power
obviously means more range.”
Some Challenges
One of the Cessna 172s had a RAM mount used to hold
the device. The second Cessna 172 had a side pocket
that worked great. The Cessna 182 has no cockpit
pockets, so the PJ2+ was slipped into the side pouch
of the bifold kneeboard I was using. It took a little ex-
perimentation to find an angle that didn’t have the an-
tenna hitting the yoke.
One thing I would have liked is a more physically ro-
bust push-to-talk switch because a few times the PTT
kind of quit during use. When I held my finger on the
button, the button sort of disengaged. Several of my
learners also attempted to use the device and reported
the same thing—it was as if your finger slipped off the
switch although you had the pressure on. [

TRUST BUT
VERIFY
Gettin g t h e m o st f r o m yo u r prepurcha s e i ns p ecti o n
B Y R I CH AR D SCAR BROUGH
CORPORATE AIRCRAFT SALES are booming.
Never before has the industry witnessed this much
activity in such a short time. Business aviation was
already rising when COVID-19 shot demand into or-
bit in early 2020. The pandemic introduced new chal-
lenges to transacting aircraft. With travel and physical
presence limited, buyers and sellers relied on digital
records and industry reputation. While executing an
on-site, prepurchase inspection (PPI) proved chal-
lenging during the lockdown, it has returned as es-
sential for conducting business in 2023. The result is
blending two worlds, digital and physical, into one new
reality. Regarding aircraft maintenance profession-
als inspecting aircraft, one thing has not and will not
change: Trust but verify.
Where to Begin
Purchasing an aircraft can seem like a daunting chal-
lenge at first. Millions of dollars may be at stake in a
jet deal, and a poorly maintained aircraft could also
fail in service and jeopardize the well-being of pas-
sengers, family members, and crew. But just as much
may be riding on a much smaller deal on a light piston
airplane. As with any business endeavor, it’s better to
engage the assistance of experts—regardless of the na-
ture of your aircraft transaction, and gather tips from
pros who specialize in business aviation that applies
to your process.
Typically, the first step in any aircraft acquisi-
tion is for the buyer to submit a letter of intent (LOI)
to the seller. Soar Aviation Law LLC, an aviation law
firm based in Cleveland, notes that the driving factor
for submitting an LOI is to address each party’s un-
derstanding of the critical business elements of the
transaction and capture and document those terms.
The PPI is a vital element of the LOI, addressing essen-
tial details such as inspection requirements, scope of
work, and inspection-conducting facility.
Courtesy of Richard Scarbrough
I recently spoke with Par Avion Ltd. founder and
president Janine Iannarelli, who leads the interna-
tional aircraft marketing firm exclusively representing
buyers and sellers of business jets. Iannarelli reiterates
that choosing the maintenance facility or technician is
a critical decision, and while both parties must agree,
it is better to have a third party without bias. Ideally
you want to bring on board a representative with spe-
84
cific product knowledge. Be wary of influence, and
take care to avoid preferential treatment.
Iannarelli says the service center has a standard
protocol and checklist for these events. The team
will look for problem areas for regions, any corro-
sion or previous findings, and check prior operations
and ownership history. This language is in a mutual
agreement, spelled out in a contract with a scope of
work. Additional items may be added to the scope of
work based on the inspection, and it can be amended
as needed. With travel restrictions relaxed, her best
advice is to travel to look at the aircraft. Both buyers
and sellers will need to have representatives on-site.
Another aspect of shopping for an aircraft is if the
airplane has an existing maintenance program. Soar
Aviation Law says of maintenance programs, “Aircraft
that are enrolled in maintenance and subscription
programs, such as those covering airframes, engines,
and maintenance tracking, are often more marketable
and more valuable.” Additionally, it is often necessary
to consult with the maintenance program about the
transfer of ownership and coverage rates. Be sure to
obtain a price quote to continue the coverage. This fee
will be factored into the total cost of ownership.
Records/Aircraft Logbook Review
As with any aircraft maintenance event, one does not
start by pulling panels in the hangar. First of all, what
are you looking for? Secondly, what happens when you
find it? Third, is this part supposed to be installed?
Aircraft logbooks tell the story of the airplane, engine,
and propeller(s). Each piece of the airplane has its se-
rial number-specific logbook. If the aircraft is a twin
engine, two engine logbooks will be present.
As there is quite a bit of component swapping during
aircraft maintenance, it is imperative that the serial
number listed as installed on the aircraft physically
resides in that position. Frequently parts get swapped
out during troubleshooting or to avoid an aircraft on
ground (AOG) situation, and those need to be recorded
correctly. One, do the records match the aircraft? Look
for the serial numbers of components. Airworthiness
directive (AD) status and service bulletin (SB) compli-
ance are other factors to consider. Remember, ADs are
mandatory, and owners must comply to stay airwor-
thy. Speaking of airworthiness, what authority governs
the operation of the aircraft? Is it the FAA, European
Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Civil Aviation
Administration of China (CAAC), or another regulat-
ing body? If you intend to operate the aircraft under
a different regulating agency, there may be additional
paperwork to complete.
If the above instances are valid, importing the ac-
quired aircraft to another country could be required.
Soar Aviation Law advises that during the visual in-
spection, if the aircraft is found to comply with an-
other governing body, it is important for the buyer to
have a designated airworthiness representative (DAR)
 Janine Iannarelli of Par Avion Ltd. walks through an inspection with her client. Peace of mind is priceless .
present to determine if the aircraft will be considered
airworthy in the U.S.
A wealth of information can be gleaned from review-
ing the aircraft records. Tony Kioussis, former presi-
dent and CEO of Asset Insight LLC, and I sat down to
discuss prepurchase inspections. Kioussis has spent
his career dealing with aircraft, and his current ven-
ture is AvPolls, which provides insight into the aero-
space industry’s collective viewpoint. He offers some
good advice when beginning a records review.
According to Kioussis, if a seller does not allow suf-
ficient time for a detailed check of the aircraft and its
records, it might be a sign of hidden issues. “I would
never acquire an aircraft without the opportunity
to conduct a detailed PPI,” he said. I asked Kioussis
about some lessons he has learned in the aircraft bro-
85
kerage business. He acknowledges that each aircraft
model has its known issues. According to him, it is best
to conduct the PPI utilizing a facility that knows the
model well—such as the OEM. One item that can be
overlooked is an entry to the log that might seem rou-
tine but one that has a more important story to tell. If
an aileron has been “replaced,” what required its re-
placement? Was it replaced because a tug struck it?
That would mean the aircraft had sustained damage
that might affect its valuation.
The pandemic definitely affected business aircraft
sales. During COVID, access to an aircraft by the buy-
er’s and seller’s representatives to the PPI facility was
often limited. Record reviews were often more lim-
ited than buyers would like. Because of the “purchas-
ing frenzy” that was created during the pandemic,
 low inventory led to a seller’s market. That not only
dramatically raised prices, especially for newer, low-
er-time aircraft, but also allowed sellers to limit, if not
outright refuse to allow, a PPI of their aircraft. Some
buyers, especially first-time ones, were not advised
by an experienced acquisition consultant. As a result,
some were willing to acquire an airplane under “as-is,
where-is” terms. Any experienced buyer will tell you
that doing that may not only cause you to pay more for
the aircraft than it is worth but also increase your cost
for maintenance in the future and potentially nega-
tively impact your selling price for the asset at the time
of replacement.
Aircraft Condition Inspection
Once the records review is well underway, it is neces-
sary to inspect the aircraft physically. One line on the
Courtesy of Richard Scarbrough (2)
job card may perform a borescope inspection (BSI)
of the engines. Here, the team can check for specific
trouble points for this aircraft. At this point, begin to
cross-check the physical serial numbers against the
paperwork.
Working with industry experts when launching
these maintenance evolutions is important. Crew
Chiefs Corp. is just such an organization. With teams
stationed all around the globe, Crew Chiefs can serve
86
as an on-site representative for prebuys, completions,
and refurbs. Mark Thibault, chief technical officer,
and Warren Curry, COO, of Crew Chiefs, discussed
the logistics of prepurchase inspections with FLYING.
There is no industry standard for the scope of ser-
vices performed during an aircraft PPI. The scope
of work dictates the depth of the inspection. A com-
plete PPI is conducted at a service center or MRO fa-
cility. When necessary, a condensed aircraft survey
conducted by an aircraft technical expert, typically
in a hangar or even on the ramp of an airport, with-
out an MRO’s involvement may be needed. Buyers may
choose these abbreviated surveys when the MRO lacks
the space or the time to close the deal is tight. They
consist of a detailed visual inspection of the aircraft
and a thorough aircraft records review without involv-
ing removing panels.
For full work-scope PPIs, the following are essential
elements. The maintenance inspection team ensures
adherence to the scope of work. The teams then as-
sess the discrepancies and take action as needed. Typ-
ically, a seller is financially responsible for correcting
all airworthy findings, and the buyer is financially re-
sponsible for all findings not considered airworthiness
issues. It may be necessary for the maintenance team
to accompany the aircraft on an acceptance test flight.
The buyer should receive daily status reports and a fi-
nal comprehensive report with all activities, observa-
tions, and assessments, including associated pictures.
To better understand the process, Crew Chiefs high-
lights five focus areas during the inspection:
1. Condition surveys: Conduct a comprehensive in-
spection of the cockpit and cabin for aesthetics,
form, fit, and function. Make an exterior zonal
flow inspection to assess paint, flight control sur-
faces, engine inlets, tire and brake wear, as well as
any areas exhibiting corrosion, damage, or defects.
• Maintain daily awareness of the progress and sta-
tus of the prebuy inspection, especially if a tech-
nical representative was not hired to protect your
interests.
• Understand pending inspections that may signifi-
cantly add to the cost of aircraft ownership within
the first couple of years.
• Ensure all documentation, records, and logbooks
are reviewed for completeness, organization, and
compliance.

2. Conformity inspection: Make one if the buyer’s
intended use involves Part 135 (AOC) and the
state of registry compliance.
3. Program reviews: Assess the status of any engine/
APU/avionics, OEM programs, third party war-
ranties, or component warranties.
4. Verification of sales specifications and loose
equipment: Review the aircraft’s options and
equipment to ensure compliance with the pro-
posed aircraft purchase agreement.
5. Oversight of BSI and cold soak flights: This re-
quires third-party involvement, such as an en-
gine OEM or service provider, operator, or current
owner(s) and pilot(s) but allows for a better under-
standing of any existing engine discrepancies and
operational and system checks.
• Ensure you use a highly reputable provider to re-
view the prebuy inspection results.
Once the inspection team wraps up and the reports
are filed, it’s time to sit down and negotiate. Some-
times, the two parties may need to close the deal
before accomplishing the entire squawk list. Soar
Aviation Law points out that currently the most com-
mon reason aircraft deals cannot close is because of
supply chain issues. The aftermarket parts supply is
constrained and not all parts are readily available to
return the aircraft to service. In this case, the parties
can agree on a reduced price based on the estimated
cost to repair, or each can agree on a holdback amount
to be held by the escrow agent after closing. The hold-
back is used to pay for the repair of the outstanding
discrepancies. [

We also discussed some universal truths that, regard-

less of aircraft model, prospective buyers should be
aware of:

• Ensure contractual obligations to rectify discrep-

ancies for the seller and buyer are clearly agreed
upon before inspection.

• Obtain professional advice on the recommended

scope of the prebuy inspection based on aircraft
type, total hours, age, and intended utilization.

• Use a third-party inspection service for an objec-

tive assessment. Do not use the current owner’s
maintenance personnel.

• It is always recommended to complete an engine

borescope inspection from the engine OEM or en-
gine OEM-authorized facility if possible.

• Conduct a test flight—sometimes called an obser-

vation or acceptance flight—to evaluate aircraft
performance and conduct in-flight operational
and systems checks.

87
 THE INTRICACIES
OF GETTING READY
FOR RENO
Air racer John Dowd hopes to get his Yak on track for Gold.

BY JO NATH AN WE LSH
EVER SINCE JOHN DOWD, a career crop-spraying
pilot, flew his Yak-11 to victory at 376 mph in the Silver
race at the National Championship Air Races in Reno,
Nevada, in 2016, he felt the former Russian World War
II trainer could do better.
Following the race, Dowd was riding a wave of gratifi-
cation, knowing he had at least set a record for aircraft
powered by the Pratt & Whitney R1830 Twin Wasp en-
gine, sourced from a Douglas DC-3. “That was the fast-
est that engine has ever gone,” he says. And while he is
not the type to mention it, his Yak—named Lilya, for
Russian wartime fighter pilot hero Lilya Litvyak—made
the rest of the field, all North American P-51 Mustangs
with legendary Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, look slow.

Racing Costs Money and Time

After returning to Syracuse, Kansas, Dowd began
working on improvements that he believed would push
the airplane past 400 mph, which would almost cer-
tainly be fast enough to crack the Gold race, though
probably not enough to win it. You can expect only so
much improvement in performance year to year, espe-
cially when you are on a budget. Besides, Dowd, who has
racing experience at Reno dating back to the 1970s, had
difficulty finding time to work on his race airplanes.
“You wind up with a list of ‘wanna dos’ and ‘gotta
dos,’ and in my case my spraying planes always were
the priority,” he says of the aerial application business
he owned for decades. “My farmers had to come first.”
Dowd did not return to Reno until last year, but af-
ter problems getting Lilya ready, he brought a P-51A
called Shanty Irish, with which he won Silver again,
flying very smoothly and very low, even by Reno stan-
dards. Though fans loved the P-51A, Dowd felt the Yak
had more winning potential. Besides, he has never re-
ally enjoyed flying P-51s. While they might appear
smooth and graceful rounding the pylons, the experi-
ence in the cockpit feels like drudgery. “It’s like driving
a truck around the course—a lot of work.” The Yak, he
says, is simply easier to fly.

Sometimes, Less Is More

There were several additional reasons Dowd chose the
Yak over the P-51. First, it is smaller than the P-51s,
Grumman Bearcats, and Hawker Sea Furies that make
up most of the competitive air racing field. This basic
trait tends to equate to a smaller budget required.
Probably the most significant advantage related to
the Yak’s size is that it does not need an enormous en-
gine in order to go fast. Dowd’s airplane won the Silver
in 2016 at 376 mph using the Pratt & Whitney R1830
Twin Wasp—and it was tiny among the air-cooled radi-
als typically found at Reno, including Pratt & Whitney
R2800s and R4360s, and Wright R3350s. There are en-
gine people and airframe people among those who race at

The Yak-11 spoke to Dowd over the siren song of the

P-51s (opening spread) so oft campaigned for the Gold.
 Reno. While the groups overlap, some tend to turn to more
powerful engines when they need more speed. Others look
for ways to make airframes lighter and more aerodynamic.
“A race-prepared Merlin is going to cost you $300,000,
overhauling a 3350 is about $250,000, and an R2000
overhaul is closer to $125,000,” Dowd says. A smaller
engine is more economical, though not exactly cheap.
“You quickly find that it can be cheaper to focus on air-
frame modifications.”
Dowd also has the advantage of being an aeronautical
engineer by training. For decades he has spent winters
performing intensive maintenance on his agricultural
aircraft—and occasionally squeezing in racing proj-
ects—in his well-equipped shop.

How It Is Done
After acquiring the Yak in 2010, Dowd went through
it carefully, rebuilding and replacing numerous parts
that were broken, worn, or just not working properly.
Over the next few years, he overhauled the engine, bal-
anced control surfaces, and began redesigning some of
the aircraft’s internal electrical and mechanical sys-
tems. Mostly, though, he sought to clean up the ma-
chine aerodynamically.
Most World War II aircraft, even those famous for
high top speeds like the Mustang, really were designed
to fly at 250 mph or so—or about how fast you fly when
escorting bombers to their targets. The incidence set-
tings of the horizontal stabilizer would reflect this, so
these aircraft generally trim out easily to fly at that
speed, or roughly half the pace required for the Gold.
This is why racing airplanes often have to use lots
of trim to keep the nose down when approaching 500
mph. Sometimes the resulting aerodynamic pressure
is rough enough to tear the trim tabs off the elevators.
An elevator trim tab lost in this manner was named as
a contributing factor in the crash of race pilot Jimmy
Leeward’s P-51 Galloping Ghost at Reno in 2011. The ac-
cident killed Leeward and 10 spectators, while an ad-
ditional 70 were injured by flying shrapnel when the
airplane nose-dived into the ground and disintegrated.
The stakes at Reno are high.
Getting his Mustang to fly fast meant Dowd had to
reset the angle of its horizontal stabilizer and remove
Leonardo Correa Luna (opening spread); John Dowd (2)

an offset built into the vertical fin to counter engine

torque. Doing so significantly reduced “trim drag.” Cu-
riously, the Yak flies fine at race speed without changes
to the tail.

Spinner Afterbody
One of the modifications that makes Dowd’s Yak stand
out is barely visible. It is a fiberglass fairing called a
spinner afterbody. Like most radial-powered racers,
the Yak uses a large-diameter propeller spinner to
cover much of the engine cowling’s frontal area to im-
prove aerodynamics. This arrangement leaves a har-
row opening between the cowling and the spinner for
cooling air to reach the engine.
92
 At Reno, Dowd may compete against the likes of ‘Miss
America,’ one of the most popular P-51Ds in the class .

As the air accelerates, it moves around the spin-

ner and into the cowling. The void behind the spinner
causes turbulence and pressure to build, causing drag.
Dowd’s spinner afterbody, which he designed, is almost
a mirror image of the spinner. The fairing matches the
large diameter at the back of the spinner and narrows
to a smaller diameter as it reaches the engine crankcase
to which it is attached.
As a result, air flowing over the spinner continues
smoothly across the fairing, expanding and decelerat-
ing to more efficiently cool the engine while reducing
turbulence and drag. This is the kind of device aeronau-
tical engineers dream up. It may not look like much, but
the afterbody is effective, Dowd says. “It’s good for an
extra 20 mph.”
Other racers took note, especially Dowd’s friend and
longtime rival, Sam Davis, who flies a similar Yak, Miss
Trinidad, and is known for his skill at fabricating cus-
tom aircraft exhaust systems. Dowd was sure that a
set of Davis’ custom pipes would add even more speed
to his Yak, which still had its original, inefficient ex-
haust system.

Making Deals
“When I asked Sam about making the exhaust, he said
he would do it, but he wanted me to make a fairing for
him in exchange,” Dowd says. While giving that much
help to a competitor might seem strange, it is the way
things go in the air racing community. Pilots often take
a year off from the sport to help rivals prepare their air-
craft or join their race-day pit crew. Sometimes they
even fly for them. In addition to supplying the spinner
fairing, Davis proposed that Dowd fly Miss Trinidad
for him as well. These are the types of deals that racers
make all the time.
Davis, based in Corona, California, has been work-
ing steadily on Miss Trinidad for weeks, including the
installation of Dowd’s fiberglass fairing. The airplane
is based at Chino Airport (KCNO), home of the Planes
of Fame Air Museum and Fighter Rebuilders, an oper-
ation that restores warbirds and prepares numerous
racing aircraft for competition.
Recently, John Maloney, a longtime racer, film pi-
lot, and son of Ed Maloney, who founded the museum
and restoration businesses, test-flew Davis’ Yak and
deemed it ready to race. Well, almost. The aircraft is
at least ready to begin the process of countless tweaks,
fine-tuning, and practice flying necessary for a good
run at Reno.
In an interesting twist, Maloney has even offered to
Leonardo Correa Luna

fly Miss Trinidad at Reno, possibly bumping Dowd to

reserve-pilot status. “It’s fine. Johnny is one of the best
sticks I know,” Dowd says, noting that he is often hap-
pier working with the crew than flying the airplane.
“I’ll be there with all of my tools.” [

93
 LIFE IN THE AIR
TAK I NG W IN G

PL AYDATE
Exploring the Cascades’ mountain airstrips with Piper and a Stinson

BY SAM WEIGEL

W
E’VE HAD AN absolutely gorgeous spring and early summer in the Pacific
Northwest, and if I had my druthers, I’d spend every glorious moment exploring
the area with my pretty blue-and-green 1946 Stinson 108. But it’s been all work
and no play for this dull boy, because as of early July, my wife Dawn and I are still not quite moved
into our grass-strip hangar/apartment. We’re making great progress, mind you, with the punch
list growing steadily shorter and the final inspection drawing closer. The place is really coming
together and is becoming exactly the handsome, comfortable little adventure base I envisioned.
Sam Weigel

Our excitement over our impending move has helped keep our noses to the grindstone, even on
all these beautiful flying days when we’d rather be airborne.

94
 LIFE IN THE AIR
TAK I N G WI N G
But today I’m finally taking a day off. I’ve had an ul-
tra-productive week, I’ll be flying for work tomorrow, and
Dawn just headed to her parents’ place in South Dakota.
It’s just me and my flying pooch, Piper, living the bach-
elor life. It’s time for a playdate to go explore those Cas-
cade mountain strips I’ve been eyeing from high above on
the CHINS5 and GLASR2 arrivals. This would ideally be
done in the cool, still air of morning, but I got waylaid by
another project, and it’s after noon by the time Piper and
I finally depart and turn northeast. It’s not a terribly hot
day, though, and we’re light, and the highest airstrip is at
only 3,000 feet in elevation. The puffy cumulus over the
Cascades aren’t looking too threatening—yet.
I skirt south of Paine Field (KPAE) and enter the
mountains via the dramatic Skykomish River valley,
with 6,000-foot peaks towering over both sides. Fif-
teen miles in, the town of Skykomish appears around a
bend along with our first destination, Skykomish State
Airport (S88): 2,000 feet of turf runway, 1,002 feet el-
evation, trees on both ends. The left pattern to Run-
way 24 makes for a tight downwind along the southern
ridge and close by a granite outcropping before turning
a blind base. Turning final, the runway appears again
out of the trees, and I ease down a groove and land on
the grass. With just Piper and I and partial fuel, I eas-
ily turn off at midfield without getting on the brakes.
Piper is a much less anxious flyer these days, but he’s
still always glad to clamber out of the airplane and run
his little heart out. The airport is deserted today, so I
let him wander off leash while I take a look at the picnic
tables and camping spots. The field is ideally set up for
group camping by an EAA chapter or a gaggle of friends.
The guest book reveals mostly old taildraggers like mine,
the most recent some 10 days ago. There’s no reason you
couldn’t take a Cessna 172 in here easily if you kept it
light, but alas, many flight schools and FBOs in the area
now prohibit landing at unpaved airports.
After a quick lunch, Piper and I load up again, start
up, and take off on Runway 24. I fly a mile beyond town
and then turn around in a wide part of the valley, climb-
ing steeply to have plenty of altitude before approaching
4,056-foot Stevens Pass. I see the alpine lake to which
Dawn and I snowshoed last winter and turn north to
cross a 5,000-foot ridge into the Rainy Creek water-
shed. I follow it down to beautiful Lake Wenatchee and
the Lake Wenatchee State Airport (27W), elevation 1,936
feet msl. As I approach, I can see the middle half of the
2,473-foot runway appears to be bare dirt and decide to
do an inspection pass down Runway 9. I don’t see any
big rocks, but on the next approach I touch down right
at the threshold to get slow before the bare patch. Even
at reduced speed, we bounce around a lot, and I can hear
stones hitting the underside of the fuselage. Maybe I
ought to have landed beyond the dirt—there was a good
1,000 feet of grass left. Soon after we arrive, a Cessna 182
buzzes the dusty strip and peels off into the left down-
wind. I film his landing, which is a dramatic plop right in
the middle of the rocky zone. The hardy Skylane seems
96
no worse for wear, and I’m soon talking to Bryce from Las
Vegas. He’s flown all the way here for the Touratech Rally
for adventure motorcyclists in nearby Plain, Washington.
We talk dirt bikes for a bit before I eye the skies and de-
cide it’s time to go. Those cumulus have built a good bit.
They’re not ugly enough to chase us out of the mountains
just yet, but Piper and I should get moving.
I purposely came into the mountains with partial gas,
necessitating a fuel stop at Wenatchee’s Pangborn Me-
morial Airport (KEAT). From there, we climb out over
Mission Ridge, dodging rain shafts. My Stratus ADS-B
receiver shows some strong precipitation northeast of
Mount Rainier and over the Goat Rocks Wilderness, but
so far it’s staying clear of our next destination. Passing
Cle Elum, Snoqualmie Pass looks very doable—that’s my
backup option. As I work my way southwest, though, the
weather holds. Crossing Bethel Ridge, I marvel at a fan-
tastic ridgetop trail and file it away for a ride on my KTM
dirt bike. From there, it’s a fast drop into the Tieton River
valley, where Tieton State Airport (4S6, elevation 2,964
feet msl) is nestled on the shore of Rimrock Lake.
In late summer, Tieton State becomes a busy Forest
Service firebase, but for now it’s quiet. The vertiginous
dome of appropriately named Goose Egg Mountain lies
just off the north end, making this a mostly one-way-in,
one-way-out airport. The wind is nearly calm. I fly out
over the lake, make a spiraling descent, and set up a dog-
leg approach to 2,509-foot Runway 2. There’s a decent
bug-out option to the left down to about 150 feet, but be-
low that you wouldn’t want to go around without a good
bit of power. This time, speed and glide path are right on
target, so I continue over the shoreline and make a wheel
landing on the grass. Overall the strip is in great shape.
Tieton looks like a fantastic place to airplane camp.
There’s plenty of shady parking alongside the strip, an
indoor pit toilet, and nice views over the lake and moun-
tains. It’s a short walk to the beach, where Piper frolics
in the sand. For a minute, he’s a young pup on Windbird
again. But now it’s 5 p.m., and those overdeveloped cu-
mulus are getting a lot closer. I can see rain shafts cutting
across the far side of the lake. Our playdate is almost over.
The hourlong flight home will take us up and over White
Pass, past Mount Rainier via the Skate Creek and Nis-
qually River drainages, and thence via Puyallup and the
Tacoma Narrows. As a young pilot, this would have been
a grand adventure, and now it’s all part of my backyard.
My 20th wedding anniversary is coming up, and while
we’re celebrating with a monthlong trip to New Zealand
later in the year, we didn’t have plans for the big day it-
self. When I asked Dawn what she’d like to do, she said
airplane camping in the mountains. I think Tieton State
Airport will be a great place to base ourselves for a few
days of exploration. I’m a very lucky guy. [
SAM WEIGEL began flight lessons at 13 and worked his
way up to flying for a major airline. His new online series, V1
Rotate, explores the world of the professional pilot.
 E1000

UNPARALLELED PERFORMANCE.

4,000 fpm Climb Rate | 34,000 ft Ceiling | 2,860 lb Useful Load | 1,100 lb Max Full Fuel Payload

epicaircraft.com
© 2022 Epic Aircraft, LLC. All rights reserved.
 LIFE IN THE AIR
LEA D IN G E D GE

DEPARTURE
DIALOGUE
Conversations in dispatch

BY BEN YOUNGER

THERE’S AN OLD JOKE THAT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

How do you know if someone is a pilot?
They will tell you.
As aviators we like to let everyone know, not only our own ability but that of our airplanes. We
L. German

are proud of our dispatch reliability rate, the utility they afford, the ease of travel, and the time
saved not standing in a TSA line. And we would love to tell you all about it in great detail.

98
 LIFE IN THE AIR
LEA D IN G E D GE
And yet, for all that talk, we don’t always communi-
cate very well with our passengers when describing risk.
We don’t want to scare the deer. Or show our airplane’s
shortcomings. Or our own.
But, yes, our little airplanes really do offer up all that
utility. Add a Garmin suite of avionics to the already reli-
able powerplant/airframe in my highly updated Bonanza,
and I can get in and out of places that no commercial air-
liner could ever attempt.
Part 91 takes away whatever remaining restrictions
the majors have in getting off the ground. Technically, we
GA pilots can take off in any conditions we like. Sure, we
don’t necessarily do it, but we all know that we could if we
I wanted to make it work—for
me, as much as for him.
wanted to badly enough. And that’s simply not a helpful
framework for our self-deluding primate brains.
I remember once getting a call some years ago on a Sat-
urday morning from my buddy, Dave. He and a friend had
to make a wedding in California’s Bay Area that night.
Their commercial flight into KSFO was canceled because
of fog. He asked me if I could get them to a nearby air-
port in the next few hours. A part of my brain lit up at the
thought of saving the day. It’s fun being the hero. I tried
to remain calm and even had the wherewithal to tell him
I had to check the weather first. But my mind was already
87 percent made up. I was getting them to that wedding.
Turns out it wasn’t just fog. There was a well-devel-
oped low making a ton of rain along with 70 knot winds
at 10,000 feet. We flew right through that storm. While
there was no convection, and I wasn’t exactly in over
my head, it was not a flight that needed to happen. I had
just received my instrument rating a few months ear-
lier and was determined to leverage it to its full poten-
tial. I remember this one moment up at altitude when I
realized the weather at our destination was not going to
lift above minimums. I told the guys we would not make
San Jose and would have to land at Monterey. They were
concerned with rental cars and ground transportation,
blissfully unaware I had not studied our alternate’s in-
strument approaches—there are six of them at KMRY.
Runway 28 was active, and it required a descent toward
mountainous terrain and an approach that takes you
right past peaks higher than the aircraft’s path. The sur-
rounding terrain there is the real deal, having taken the
life of a well-known CFI who had a CFIT accident in 2021
while departing into IMC.
Our flight ended with a successful landing, but I will
always remember walking away from the airplane to-
ward the FBO when Dave asked me if I always sweated
this much when flying. “Yes,” I replied. “I’m a ‘schvitzer.’”
100
Better that than explain to him that I exposed them both
to a much higher risk without ever giving them the option
to make a choice for themselves. Had I called Dave back
earlier that morning and explained that our desired des-
tination was at minimums and our alternate had moun-
tainous terrain surrounding it on three sides, he might
very well have decided making the wedding wasn’t that
important after all. More than 50 percent of marriages
end in divorce, anyway. But I never gave him that option.
I wanted to make it work—for me, as much as for him.
And that’s a problem.
In the end, I didn’t even achieve the hero status that
was fueling my decision-making process. The guys
were were scrambling to find a rental car as they tossed
a thank-you over their shoulders as they walked to the
FBO. I slowly made my way back to the airplane and just
sat there in the left seat for a bit and breathed before fil-
ing and heading back to LA.
The best example of this noncommunication was also
the worst day of my life: that fateful morning in Tellu-
ride, Colorado, where I encountered wind shear on take-
off and almost entered a stall/spin, ending with a gear-up
landing. My passenger and I could have left later that day
or the next morning. That’s when all the “reasons” start
flooding in:
• The hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is booked.
• The restaurant reservation is made.
• The girl is new to me, and I want to impress her.
• My airplane is perfectly suited to the mission.
• I am a pilot of exceptional, bordering superhuman
ability.
In hindsight, those seem patently absurd (the last, also
being patently false) with the reality I was then served: a
totaled airplane, a scarred pilot and his dog, and a woman
who ended up being subjected to a terrifying, near-death
experience.
Had I just asked her if she was willing to risk the
flight at one of the most notoriously dangerous airports
in North America because of mountain wind shear and
a climbing density altitude, I can almost guarantee she
would have declined. But that dialogue never occurred,
because I never opened it.
There are times where we really don’t see the danger
coming and, as such, a conversation cannot be had. For
that, there is no remedy. But I find the vast majority of
the time there is that tingling feeling that originates in
your brain then migrates south to the back of your neck,
where it surfaces, becoming almost topical—like an itch.
We almost always know. We just don’t always listen,
and we often don’t speak. }
BEN YOUNGER is a TV and film writer/director, avid motor-
cyclist, and surfer—but it’s being a pilot that he treats as
a second profession. Follow Ben Younger on Instagram:
@thisisbenyounger.
It may seem like just a flight, but it is far more than
that. Each journey is the culmination of careful
planning, flawless execution, and an unbridled
passion to provide the best in world-class customer
service. It is in each friendly handshake with the
industry’s best pilots and it is in the calm that takes
over as you settle into your seat aboard a perfectly
appointed aircraft, all Owned and Operated by
NICHOLAS AIR.
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to providing the highest quality aircraft to the Most
Refined Set of Private Flyers, the NICHOLAS AIR
team is solely focused on one mission--- yours.
Choose from one of our flexible and cost effective Jet
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 LIFE IN THE AIR
GEA R UP

GE T TING TO
KNOW YOU
There’s a lot more going on in a piston twin than a Citation CJ1.

BY DICK KARL

I F YOU HAD TOLD me when I was 30 years old that someday I would own a Beechcraft
Baron, I would have been ecstatic, but incredulous. If you had mentioned the airplane was
pressurized and had amazing avionics, I would have been overcome by disbelief and gratitude.

If you had asked me last month, my feelings might
have been a bit more mixed. It is true that a P-Baron is
the best fit for me and my family as I transition from fly-
ing our Cessna Citation CJ1 to an airplane that qualifies
for BasicMed. I could not find a version of my old love,
choice. A fabulous airplane to be sure, but it ain’t no CJ1,
if you know what I mean. It felt like leaving a high-end
restaurant for a serviceable mid-level eatery—the food
is still good, but the surroundings aren’t quite as sump-
tuous; not to mention losing the speed, altitude and re-
Dick Karl

a Cessna 340, that fit the BasicMed takeoff weight re- liability of a jet. So, it’s out of Ruth’s Chris and over to
quirement, so the smaller, sportier Baron was the best Outback Steakhouse.

102
TH E WOR LD’S MOST W IDELY READ
AV IAT IO N MAGAZINE

f lying mag.com/s ubscri be

 LIFE IN THE AIR
GEA R UP
Thus resigned, a search was launched and advice
was sought. Not many P-Barons with modern control
yokes (1984 models and later) and good avionics were
out there. After I had suffered a few false starts, an alert
mechanic told me about an airplane coming to market.
The owner had confided to his A&P that he just wasn’t
using the airplane enough to warrant continued own-
ership. He would ask for a reasonable price.
I called the owner, Joe Kolshak, only to discover he
was that Joe Kolshak, former heavy-equipment pilot
turned executive vice president at not one but two ma-
jor airlines. Kolshak revealed himself to be my kind of
guy—straightforward, reasonable, and responsive. I
agreed to his asking price pending a prebuy inspection.
A few days later, I found myself getting off an airliner in
Atlanta and taking an Uber to Peachtree-Dekalb Air-
port (KPDK), where Kolshak’s wife, Ann, was waiting
to take me to his hangar.
No lawyers, no brokers, just
two guys agreeing to transfer
ownership...
After introductions, we climbed aboard and headed to
Lakeland, Florida, with Kolshak at the controls. When
I say “climbed” aboard, I mean just that. You enter the
flight deck via the right wing. My initial attempts could
not be classified as graceful…or even safe.
Once underway, we climbed to 11,000 feet and started
to dodge thunderstorms. This was, I must say, even
easier than in the CJ1 in the sense that the Garmin
G600 and GTN 750 with SiriusXM weather gave a very
clear depiction of the buildups. It goes without saying,
though, the speed at which you can circumnavigate
thunderstorms in a jet surpasses that of a P-Baron. We
didn’t suffer a bump, though, and landed gracefully two
hours later.
The prebuy went smoothly. My go-to shop in Lakeland
(Double M Aviation) found some minor issues, but its
owner, Mike Naab, told me, “It’s a very nice airplane!”
Kolshak and I agreed on his asking price minus the esti-
mated costs for the airworthiness discrepancies and the
annual, which was due. We both signed a contract that
was significantly shorter than the one used to sell the
CJ1. No lawyers, no brokers, just two guys agreeing to
transfer ownership of an almost 40-year-old airplane.
Like I said, my kind of guy.
Tucker at Wenk Aviation Insurance, whom I’ve used
for more than 40 years, found insurance. It wasn’t
cheap, but the market for insurance for 77-year-old pi-
lots, regardless of type ratings, currency, or total hours,
104
is ugly. He recommended Wright Aviation for initial
training that was insurance approved. When I queried
its website, I got a call from Tye Jones, and we set a date
for training with Todd Underwood, who is based close
to home in Florida.
When I went to call Jones again, I noticed his phone
number read “Colorado Springs.” Funny, I was headed
there that day. When we spoke, I asked if he was indeed
in KCOS. “Yes,” he said. A pilot for SkyWest Airlines, he’s
based in KCOS and works for Wright as well. “I’ll pick you
up at the airport and drive you to your hotel,” he offered.
It came to pass. Jones gave up his time during rush
hour. This never happened at CAE, Flight Safety, or Sim-
Com. We had a delightful drive, and I came home ready
to get started. I memorized gear extension speeds, flap
speeds, minimum control speed in the air with one en-
gine inoperative, and turbulent air speed, among others.
On the appointed day, I met Underwood at Lakeland.
Naab hooked up a power cart, and we rehearsed the use
of fabulous avionics: the Garmin GTN 750 and G600. At
11:27 a.m., I did my first takeoff in a Baron. We headed
north and climbed above the customary cumulous that
aggregates over the Florida peninsula in summer. Af-
ter steep turns, stalls (clean and dirty), single-engine
demonstrations, and three landings at an uncontrolled
field, I was exhausted, but there was more to come. Al-
most three hours later, I crawled onto the wing and
headed for the water fountain. My dismount was risi-
ble. Next time, I plan to come off the wing face-first—
I’ll leave it at that.
After more training and some weight and balance
work in ForeFlight, Underwood cut me loose and left me
with one important lesson soldered into my brain. He is
a jet jockey, too, so he knows how I had been accustomed
to removing my hand from the throttles after the CJ1
reached V1, the so-called decision speed. It is said in the
jet world that after V1 you are going flying, pretty much
no matter what. He reminded me that I hadn’t flown a
piston airplane in 25 years and that single-engine flight
just after takeoff is a dangerous thing in a light twin.
“What do you do when you hear a loud bang after lift-
off, and the airplane starts to roll to the right?” Under-
wood asked. Unprepared mentally, I said control the
roll with aileron and rudder, identify dead engine, and
feather the propeller on the dead engine. He pointed out
that with full power on one side, I might be upside down
and dead by the time I managed to perform these sim-
ple tasks. “Reduce power on operating engine,” he said.
“At least you’ll have a controlled wings level crash…and
you might just make it.”
Three days later, my friend, Tom, and I flew home to
Sheltair in Tampa. Photos were taken, smiles flashed, and
congratulations offered. Still, I kept thinking of Under-
wood’s advice—and that really high-end restaurant. }
DICK KARL is a cancer surgeon turned Part 135 pilot who is
shopping for his next airplane.
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 LIFE IN THE AIR
JUMP S EAT

OUT- OF-THE-BOX
THINKING
Pink is the new magenta.

BY LES ABEND

A
T THIS YEAR’S Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) convention, Gary Reeves,
aka the “Guy in the Pink Shirt,” indicated that Steve Jobs always wore the same black
turtleneck and jeans in public to avoid the effects of “decision fatigue.”

Although the statement may be a slight embellishment,
it gave me pause for contemplation. Decision fatigue is
one of Reeves’ iconic concepts. The theory is that hu-
mans, and more importantly pilots, have the capability of
making only a finite number of good decisions in one day.
Well, I gotta admit not having to choose attire for ev-
ery trip reduced my preflight workload. Perhaps my
less-than-desirable landings at the end of a flight now
have an explanation…or at least they have a new basis for
rationalization. The decision fatigue theory is just one
comes one. I couldn’t agree more. A higher-than-normal
oil temperature may not be a major problem in the mo-
ment, but if the circumstance leads to a rapid loss in oil
pressure, an engine failure is sure to follow.
So, who is the Guy in the Pink Shirt? Gary Dale Reeves
has been instructing for more than two decades. One of
his notable claims to fame is being named the 2019 na-
tional CFI of the year. He is also an FAA Safety Team lead
representative. His focus is combining avionics technol-
ogy with real-life IFR flying. He is a computer geek and
Les Abend

of many out-of-the-box concepts that Reeves presents. a passionate flight instructor. He is an animated and en-
Another favorite instructional concept from Reeves is tertaining public speaker. Garmin, Avidyne, ForeFlight,
to declare an emergency before the situation really be- and Genesys S-Tec autopilots are all part of his expertise.

106
 Reeves’ website (www.pilotsafety.org) offers videos of
actual in-flight IFR instruction. His flagship product is
a three-day course using a client’s airplane for the sole
purpose of mastering the installed avionics to fly single
pilot safely and comfortably in IFR conditions. He will
come to you, or you can come to him.
Much of Reeves’ philosophy, “Mastery, Not Mini-
mums,” is explained in his book, Single-Pilot IFR Pro
Tips. For airline pilots engaging or reengaging in the gen-
eral aviation world, this is a must-read. The book provides
a perspective beyond traditional airline thinking, espe-
cially given the fact an experienced copilot is no longer
part of the equation.
It’s not my intent for this month’s column to be an
infomercial, but for those of us having spent decades
involved with professional flying, we encounter only a
handful of instructors that make a lasting impression
on our aviation psyche. Perhaps these folks share a com-
mon denominator.
In Reeves’ circumstance, a diverse background prior
to establishing himself in his current vocation is most
likely what defined some of his unique perspectives. His
attraction to aviation was launched with a flight on Bran-
iff Air Lines. While in grade school, his dad began taking
flying lessons and allowed Reeves the opportunity to ob-
serve. On one notable flight aboard a Cessna 172, a stall
was presented. Rather than recoil in fear at the experi-
ence, he asked for another demonstration.
Reeves began his career as a paramedic, which ulti-
mately set the foundation for his methodical approach to
handling high-stress situations. In his late 20s, an experi-
ence during an introductory ride with a reckless instruc-
tor who unexpectedly demonstrated a power-on stall
discouraged his initial entry to aviation.
The event left an impression that most likely molded
his conduct as a professional instructor. Despite the ex-
perience, he began to take flying lessons, eventually be-
coming a private pilot.
As an entrepreneur, Reeves saw a demand that no one
thought to address and created an animal ambulance
company. Although the company was successful, it con-
sumed his life. Flying airplanes became his stress relief.
At the ripe, old age of 32, he sold the business and escaped
to Las Vegas after reading an ATP Flight School adver-
tisement for a 10-day course that provided instruction
to attain CFI, CFII, and MEI ratings.
As well as being frequently self-deprecating with his
anecdotal stories, Reeves didn’t give himself high marks
as a first-year flight instructor. That said, he commit-
ted the ultimate aviation sin and bought a flight school,
operating the business for six years. He began to real-
ize that his forte was not teaching students how to per-
form a chandelle but rather the art of IFR. Combining
his technology geekiness with real-life instrument fly-
ing, he found a niche.
After becoming an expert, instructing students on the
Garmin GNS 430, Reeves was approached by Avidyne
to be its authorized training representative. Genesys
107
S-Tec autopilots and Aspen Avionics also became part
of his repertoire. Although he considers John and Mar-
tha King friends, he distinguishes their video training
as controlled studio productions versus his actual on-
board-the-airplane slices of real life.
One of Reeves’ philosophical arguments is that there is
no value in critical analysis of an accident. Analysis may
shed light on the mistakes made, but it’s possible that
with the same circumstances, another pilot might react
exactly the same. Why? Because in an emergency situ-
ation a flood of adrenalin can cause a state of paralysis
where logical reasoning is suppressed.
According to Reeves, a medical study compared this
adrenalin influx to a blood-alcohol level 50 percent above
the legal driving limit. In that regard, he is a huge propo-
nent of using the autopilot whenever possible.
Another concept that is difficult for even airline pilots
to utter is “unable,” especially for a weather avoidance
situation.
For single-pilot IFR operations, as a change in mind-
set regarding alternate airport selection, Reeves’ recom-
mended technique is to pick three airports rather than
the legal requirement of usually just one. First, select a
point on the route approximately halfway to the desti-
nation. Then locate an airport near that point with ade-
quate facilities—fuel, hotels, dining, transportation, etc.
With today’s availability of obtaining onboard weather
data, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the destination’s
ceiling or visibility begins to deteriorate. Why hassle with
the stressful tasks of a potential holding pattern, a missed
approach, and a flight to an unscheduled destination with
less fuel in the tanks? Divert early to the halfway point
airport instead.
Using this technique, the destination alternate is used
as a contingency for a disabled airplane on the runway or
other such unpredictable circumstance.
The third alternate airport is for takeoff. For airline
operations, a takeoff alternate is only required if the
weather is below landing minimums. With single-pilot
IFR operations, a takeoff alternate is used if a mechani-
cal or other such problem occurs and a return to the de-
parture airport is not a practical option.
So, where did the pink shirt idea come from? Appar-
ently, Reeves had decided to change his usual attire
at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh. Considering his flight
instruction focus, someone appropriately called him
“GPS”—Guy in the Pink Shirt.
Some may find fault with all or parts of Reeves’ tech-
niques, but you have to agree that they are based in sound
logic and practicality. He is certainly receptive to other
opinions as he combines conventional aviation training
with innovative thinking.
In that regard, that’s why pink is the new magenta. }
LES ABEND is a retired 34-year veteran of American Airlines,
attempting to readjust his passion for flying airplanes in the
lower flight levels without the assistance of a first officer.
 LIFE IN THE AIR
UNUSUAL ATTITUDES

‘BUT, INSPECTOR,
I HAVE NO IDEA …’
There are those who have—and those who may still.

BY MARTHA LUNKEN

M
OST PEOPLE THINK that Icarus, human son of the Greek god Daedalus, crashed
because wax that coated and formed his feathered wings melted when he soared
too close to the sun. But, actually, his retracted legs got glued in the sticky mess,
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and he couldn’t get his gear down. Thus, the first of many gear-up arrivals.

108
 I was a kid hanging out in the old Lunken Airport con-
trol tower the first time I saw one…and it was pretty
spectacular. It was the mid-’60s, and a derelict B-25 was
heading for the airport with a cabin full of reptiles. Re-
ally! Some “wild kingdom” exhibition opening downtown
was evidently in financial distress and badly needed to
attract a good, paying audience.
The pilot called far enough out and told the tower about
his cargo. Problem was he’d had to shut one engine down
and needed priority to land. By now the press got wind.
As he neared the airport, he radioed that he couldn’t get
the gear down and elected to land in the grass. The copi-
lot (I’m not making this up) bailed out just north of the
airport, and the B-25 skidded to a halt in the grass. It was
wintertime and firemen had to unload and incapacitate a
bunch of snakes and alligators. The papers had a heyday.
I don’t remember if the show made any money.
That was my first but certainly not last experience
with gear-up landings and what put it on my front
burner is the latest. A friend with a beautiful A36 loans
it to a couple guys—one is a pilot for a large corpora-
tion who’s probably among the best airplane drivers I
know and a pretty good mechanic to boot. I don’t know
the other guy, but he recently put the beautiful Beech
in on its belly at Lunken. There were claims that “the
electrical system was behaving strangely” and, fearing
a fire, he landed with no gear, damaging the prop, en-
gine, flaps, and belly skin.
You can almost bet that any pilot involved in a gear-up
landing does two things: They put the gear switch or han-
dle in the “down” position before any rescue arrives and
usually have an explanation about why it failed to be down
and locked. Almost never did they just plain forget.
If there’s any doubt, you do a tower or airport flyby.
Even if it appears to be down, you leave the area and use
the emergency gear extension procedure(s) in the pilot’s
operating handbook. That’s what happened in a Bonanza
with no gear lights I was flying a few years ago. I flew by,
went out and cranked it down, and then asked for the
equipment on the runway (Why not?). I landed without
using any brakes and let it roll out.
The other time was at night with an alternator fail-
ure in a retractable gear Cessna Cardinal, totally out
of “juice.” I pumped the gear down and could see it, but
there were no lights, so I circled the field, hoping for a
green light from the tower, but there was nothing. Fi-
nally, after watching a corporate guy clear the runway,
I landed and, again, stayed off the brakes, letting it roll
onto a large, adjacent ramp. When I called the tower on
the phone they said, “You did what?” And I responded,
“If you guys can’t see any better than that, I’m going to
fly my Cub at night.”
These days, there are several aids to total electri-
cal system failures. A handheld transceiver works or,
lacking that, keep the telephone numbers of the FBOs,
control towers, and approach control you commonly
use. I did that a few years ago coming back from Osh-
kosh, when the generator failed. The landing gear in my
109
Cessna 180 is welded down, so that wasn’t an issue, but
at least I could call the tower on my cell phone.
As you might imagine, I’m not always that heroic.
As an FAA inspector who did lots of Twin Beech check
rides, I rented one of our Part 135 operators’ Beech 18s
for proficiency flying with quite possibly the world’s
coolest and best Twin Beech driver, Kevin Uppstrom,
in the right seat. As we lifted off Runway 18 at Conners-
ville, Indiana (KCEV), Uppstrom simulated a left en-
gine failure by retarding a throttle. I chanted and did
the “max power, flaps approach, positive rate, gear up,
identify, verify and (simulate) feather.” It was beautiful
and, smugly, as we rounded the pattern onto final for a
landing, I said, “C’mon, Kev. Admit it. Nobody could han-
dle it better.” He said, “Yeah, so far a great job. Do you
plan to put the gear down before we land?”
I guess my funniest gear story involves a rather im-
portant CEO of a Cincinnati machine tool company who
had a penchant for unique airplanes. He’d owned a sin-
gle-place Mooney Mite with manually retractable land-
ing gear. But he’d forgotten to use the awkward Johnson
bar to extend it before landing. That was before I knew
him. By now he was on the cusp of a divorce and rather
taken with me (I was nearly seduced by his recently ac-
quired Grumman Widgeon). I was at the hangar after the
Mite had been extracted (gear up) from the runway and
deposited in his large multi-airplane hangar.
Way before my FAA days, I still knew inspector John
O’Rourke, who was walking around the broken bird,
pipe in his mouth and clipboard in hand. Mr. CEO was
explaining he had no idea why the gear hadn’t extended—
he’d certainly put it down before landing. Then the back
door of the hangar opened, and the soon-to-be-ex Mrs.
CEO came in, surveyed the scene and, in her distinctive
upper class, Down East Maine accent said, “Well, I see
you’ve done it again.”
I’m not making light of landing an airplane with the
gear not securely down and locked. It’s a dreadful expe-
rience, but pilots and passengers are rarely hurt. Hope-
fully, you have hull insurance and knowledgeable people
extracting the airplane from the runway without fur-
ther damage. There’s usually a long wait for overhauled
or new engines, props, and repair to other airplane dam-
age. The main problem is ego...and that’s a biggie.
I’ve always loved the memory of a big guy named Ed
Creelman, an excellent pilot who flew a Beech 18 for a
local paper company. I was nearby as he sat in the Sky
Galley restaurant when somebody asked, “Hey, Ed. What
happened to your airplane?” Without hesitation, in his
signature gruff voice, he answered: “I forgot to put the
f---ing gear down.”
He was (and is) my hero. }
MARTHA LUNKEN is a lifelong pilot, former FAA inspector,
and defrocked pilot examiner. She owns and flies a Cessna
180, and she loves anything with a tailwheel, from Piper
Cubs to Douglas DC-3s.
 LIFE IN THE AIR
TECH N ICAL I T IES

‘TITAN ’ AND YOU

The ill-fated submersible’s service life limit unfortunately appears to have been about a day or two.

BY PETER GARRISON

A FTER THE IMPLOSION of the submersible Titan in June, my friend Howard Morland
wrote to me: “Cameron said it was ‘insidious’ the way composite carbon fiber materials
‘fail over time.’ This statement made me think of Melmoth 2. Any relevance?”

(Cameron being James Cameron, the film director and
undersea explorer who was an early and outspoken critic
of the Titan project; Melmoth 2 being my homebuilt air-
plane, whose wing structure consists mainly of carbon
fiber composites. An unnamed third party in the drama
is Stockton Rush, the designer of Titan and, like me, a self-
taught amateur engineer.)
Until the investigation of the accident is completed, we
will not be certain why the submersible failed. But in case
others wondered whether Cameron’s comments apply to
Deep-sea submersibles are normally made of metal;
carbon fiber construction was an innovation. Its high
strength-to-weight ratio looked attractive for a craft that
was expected to be very strong and yet able to float.
Carbon fibers are filaments two to four ten-thou-
sandths of an inch in diameter—closer to spider web than
human hair. They have a higher tensile strength than
the strongest steel—around 500,000 pounds per square
inch—and a compressive strength about a quarter of that.
You may wonder how such a slender filament can have
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carbon-fiber composites in aircraft... compressive strength at all. Isn’t that like talking about

110
the compressive strength of a rope? But if you take a suf-
ficiently small segment of a filament, say only five or 10
times as long as it is thick, it is no longer a rope but a rod.
And a rod can obviously support some amount of com-
pressive load—that is, pressure applied to opposite ends.
We know from experience that if you push too hard on
the ends of a long, skinny pole, it buckles. A 6-inch-long
piece of uncooked spaghetti will bend outward and break
if you press on its ends. A half-inch-long piece will hurt
your fingers, but it won’t break.
You could make the longer strand carry a greater load
if you tied it to a rigid support every half inch, so that it
couldn’t buckle. This is the principle on which fine fibers
in an epoxy matrix carry loads. Fibers are glued together
to make a thick column within which each filament is
continuously stabilized by all the others.
Compressive members are critical because if com-
posite structures are going to fail, they are much more
likely to do so in compression than in tension. Compres-
sive components in airplanes, such as the upper portions
of wing spars, are made of bundles of parallel fibers, not
of the woven stuff found in fancy sporting goods. For the
wing spars in Melmoth 2, I bonded multiple precured
strips of unidirectional material that had been lab tested
and found to fail in compression at 60,000 pounds per
square inch. (Composites laid up in my garage and cured
at room temperature do not attain the theoretical maxi-
mum strength of the material.) The way they would fail is
significant: The surface fibers would pop out of the lam-
inate. In other words, the force tending to bow the fibers
outward exceeded the ability of the epoxy to hold them in.
This can happen within the laminate as well. Any im-
perfection—in epoxy, a tiny void, a speck of foreign mate-
rial, a kink in a fiber bundle—can trigger “microbuckling”
and minute delaminations that grow with repeated load-
ing. When Cameron spoke of carbon-fiber laminates fail-
ing insidiously over time, he was referring to this gradual
accumulation of small cracks. Unlike cracks in metals,
which usually appear on the surface and can be detected
by visual or dye penetrant inspection, these are buried
and detectable only when they have become quite large
and then only by special testing equipment.
Titan’s pressure vessel, designed to withstand the
5,500-pounds-per-square-inch pressure where the Ti-
tanic wreckage rests, was an eight-foot long, 65-inch, car-
bon-fiber cylinder with hemispherical titanium end caps.
At depth, each cap pressed on the cylinder’s ends with a
force of around 18 million pounds. The aggregate pres-
sure on the cylinder’s reportedly 5-inch-thick walls was
more than 100 million pounds. If you assume a compres-
sive strength of 125,000 psi and ideal fiber orientations,
the hull would have had, when new, a factor of safety of
around two. Because fiber orientations were probably
not ideal, however, it was most likely lower than that, say
1.5 or even less.
Airplanes, too, use a safety factor of 1.5 over and
above their highest anticipated aerodynamic loading.
However, airplanes seldom, if ever, actually experience
extreme loads, and if they do, it is only for very brief pe-
111
A composite submersible
experiences extreme loading.
riods. A composite submersible, on the other hand, expe-
riences extreme loading on every descent. Furthermore,
it spends long periods at that loading, during which ep-
oxy-to-fiber bonds can progressively deform and break.
Indeed, people who had made previous dives in Rush’s
composite submersibles—he designed several—report
having heard cracking sounds, which must have concen-
trated their attention wonderfully.
An airplane undergoes a vast amount of strength and
flight testing before being certificated and put on the
market. The performance of its structure continues to
be monitored, and the normally large number of exam-
ples in service gives the individual owner or passenger
the comfort of knowing that if a problem occurs, it will
probably happen to someone else first.
Titan was—and always would be—an experimental
prototype. Notoriously, it was unclassed—the nautical
analogue of uncertificated—because its creator, attempt-
ing to wrest the moral high ground from his critics, in-
sisted that outside scrutiny puts a brake on the precious
spirit of innovation.
Indeed, he was right. It does. Burt Rutan waxed elo-
quent on the unfair burden the required protection of
desert tortoises placed upon the development of Space-
ShipOne. But a brake is needed. Innovators are often peo-
ple who are ambitious and headstrong, qualities that give
them energy but may also blind them to the ethical impli-
cations of their actions. And this was not just innovation
for its own sake. Rush was selling tickets.
Titan had made several previous deep dives and was
evidently strong enough when it was new. But it appar-
ently deteriorated with each prolonged imposition of
enormous pressure. Composite airplanes, using similar
materials and analogous construction techniques, are
designed in the context of a huge accumulation of statis-
tical data on loads encountered in flight—their character,
strength, and duration—and on the behavior of compos-
ites in the flight environment. Composite airframes may
have a service life limit, but none has yet been firmly es-
tablished. Indications are that if one were established, it
would be in the tens of thousands of hours.
Although the sample size falls short of statistical sig-
nificance, Titan’s service life limit appears to have been
more like a day or two. }
PETER GARRISON taught himself to use a slide rule and tin
snips, built an airplane in his backyard, and flew it to Japan.
He contributes Aftermath to FLYING, along with this well-
loved column. He has contributed to FLYING since 1968.
 SI GN O FF

RENO AIR RACES

THE AIR RACES at Reno, Nevada, have graced FLYING’s cover since
1964 when the magazine first ran a preview to the renewal of National
Championship Air Races at what was then the Reno Sky Ranch. The hotly
contested Unlimited and “midget and biplane” classes were among those
to put up significant numbers that year, with the Unlimiteds running a
five-pylon circuit and the smaller aircraft a two-pylon closed racecourse
inside it. The ACME Special (above) is a Cassutt IIIM, originally built in
1978, destined for the F1 Class. Matt Moore acquired the project in 2017,
Leonardo Correa Luna

and it was raced in 2018 at Reno and Wuhan, China, with Jason Barksdale
flying. Moore took over flying duties in 2019 and 2021. Race No. 72 now
resides with Dominic Cacolici of St. Petersburg, Florida, and he will be at
Reno campaigning in what is likely to be the final National Championship
Air Races at that venue. Photographer Leonardo Correa Luna shot the
ACME Special at Reno in 2021. [

112
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